LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/TTZBULIC-A-TIOIESrS 
OF THE 

University of Pennsylvania. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY AND PUBLIC LAW SERIES. 
EDMUND J. JAMES, Ph.D., Editor. 



-VX^LTTIMIIE II. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF, 



BY 
WILLIAM DRAPER LEWIS, 

Fellow of the Wharton School of Finance and Economy, 
University of Pennsylvania. 



4J. 



~7 V 



PHILADELPHIA. 
1890. 



PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF PA. PRESS CO. 

For Sale by P. S. King and Son, Parliamentary Booksellers, 

5 King St., Westminster, S. W. London. 



SF; 

.La 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by 

Wiujam Draper Lewis, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



The principal object of this work is to investigate 
the present condition and future possibilities of the wool 
and mutton industry of the United States, with a view 
to ascertaining the advisability of continuing our present 
tariff on raw wool. As a preliminary to this investiga- 
tion, I have tried to place before the reader the economic 
basis on which rests the theory of protection, and also 
to point out the cause of our present agricultural depres- 
sion. 

It gives me pleasure to take this opportunity to thank 
Prof. Simon N. Patten, of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, for his careful review and judicious criticism of 
the work. 

I also desire to thank all who have assisted me in the 
collection of my facts. The number of those who spent 
time and pains in answering my very numerous letters 
and questions prevents me from mentioning individual 
names. I fully realize, however, that any merit which 
the last five chapters of this book may possess is due to 
the kindness shown to me by those who are actually 
engaged in raising sheep or in handling wool. 

(iii) 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 
The Tariff 7 



CHAPTER II. 

Wheat and Clothes, or the Cause of Agricultural De- 
pression and its Remedy 37 

CHAPTER III. 
Sheep and Wool 48 

CHAPTER IV. 
Sheep Raising in the United States 64 

CHAPTER V. 

The Duty on Raw Wool, and our Imports from Foreign 
Countries 94 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Cost and Profit of Raising Sheep in the Different 
Parts of the United States and in Foreign Countries . 101 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Future of the Industry 129 

APPENDIX. 

The Land Laws of Australia 151 

(v) 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TARIFF. 



Free-Trade or protection? This is the present 
Alpha and Omega of political controversy. True, the 
word ' ' free- trade ' ' is more or less avoided by many of 
its disciples. They prefer to be called ' ' Tariff Reform- 
ers, ' ' or announce themselves in favor of a " tariff for 
revenue only." But the rival principles of free-trade 
and protection lie at the bottom of every argument. 
11 Revenue Reformers " regard the Tariff as only a tem- 
porary expedient — a nursery for ' ' infant industries ; ' ' 
while none of those who advocate ( ' a tariff for revenue 
only, ' ' at heart regard a tax on imports as an economi- 
cal method of defraying the expenses of the govern- 
ment. 

It is not my purpose to discuss the general subject of 
import duties. Sydney Smith said of Bishop Berkeley, 
that he had u . . . . destroyed the world in one volume 
octavo ; ' ' but it would have required, even from a Ber- 
keley, a far greater expenditure of pen and ink to thor- 
oughly discuss the tariff. I shall therefore confine 
myself to one portion of the field, namely: The Tariff 
on Wool. 

It is necessary, however, to first dispose of a prelimi- 
nary question. If the theory of free-trade is correct, all 
impost duties are necessarily bad; and it will be useless 
to investigate the actual conditions of any industry, ex- 

(7) 



8 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

cept to furnish an example of the truth of our conclu- 
sions. On the other hand, if there are circumstances in 
which a tariff will be beneficial to a nation, it will be 
necessary to detenu ine, by an examination of facts, 
whether our present situation warrants us in protecting 
the wool-grower. A purely theoretic study of economic 
questions is of doubtful ultility, but, nevertheless, the 
practical must be preceded and combined with the theo- 
retical, before we can expect useful results. In the 
present case this combination is unusually easy; for 
though the theoretical part of many tariff discussions 
has been confused by much useless disputation, the two 
lines of argument, one taken by the free trader and the 
other by the protectionist, are in reality very simple. 

Basiat, in his entertaining little work on "Sophism 
of Protection," has placed the theoretic basis of free- 
trade in its clearest and best light. The idea which 
lies at the foundation of his argument, as at the 
foundation of free-trade thought generally, is that 
a reduction in the price of any commodity is always 
beneficial to a people. No one will care to dispute that 
a general reduction in prices would be advantageous, 
provided wages remained the same; but it is the idea 
that a fall in the price of any single commodity is 
necessarily a good to the whole country which is pe- 
culiar to the free-trader. He thus makes cheapness the 
criterion of efficient production. To defend this posi- 
tion each commodity is taken up in turn. Man is re- 
garded as first demanding article A. As a consumer of 
A it is desirable that he should buy A as cheaply as 
possible. Then some other commodity is taken, and 
the same line of reasoning is adopted with a similar re- 
sult; while from the whole, it is concluded that a tariff 
on any article, which tends, temporarily at least, to 
raise its selling price, is always and necessarily bad. 
To be of any value in this connection the proposition 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 9 

"cheapness is always desirable," must be universal. 
It must not simply hold under certain conditions; for 
then the doctrine of free-trade, which rests on it, will 
cease to be applicable to all countries at all times. The 
proposition itself rests, as we have shown, on a method 
of reasoning which separates each commodity, and the 
desire for it, from all other desires and commodities; 
treating each in turn as if it alone existed, and apply- 
ing the law deduced from such an examination to a 
world where men seek simultaneously a great variety 
of organic and inorganic substances. 

L,et us on our part turn to the world as actually con- 
stituted. We find the laborers, apart from those doing 
purely intellectual work, engaged either in agriculture 
or manufacturing. I use these terms in their broadest 
sense. By ' ' agriculture ' ' I mean any industry in which 
land is a necessary element of production; and under 
the term ' ' manufacture ' ' include all other occupations. * 

An increase in the demand for manufactured articles 
has no permanent effect in raising the price. Four men 
can attend to twice as many looms as two. If twenty 
men can turn out forty yards of cloth in a day, forty 
men, with twice as much machinery, can make eighty 
yards, or even more, if the increase in numbers makes 
possible more efficient organization of labor. But 
whether any slight increase in the return per man will 
take place or not, the point I wish to emphasize is this, 
that an increase in the demand for manufactured com- 

* The reader may find a full discussion of land and its rent, which 
forms the basis of this discussion, in the following works: Ricardo, 
Principles of Pol. Econ. and Taxation, Chap. II ; James Mill, Ele- 
ments of Pol. Econ., p. 17; McCulloch, Principles of Pol. Econ., 
Part III., Sect. V. ; J. S. Mill, Principles of Pol. Econ., Book II., 
Chap. XVI.; Fawcett, Manual of Pol. Econ., Book II., Chap. III.; 
Jevons, Theory of Pol. Econ., Chap. VI. ; Walker, Pol. Econ., Part 
IV., Chap. II. ; Patten, Premises of Pol. Econ., Chaps. I. and II. ; 
George, Progress and Poverty, Book II., Chap. II. 



IO OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

inodities will not be followed by a permanent rise in 
prices. 

In agriculture it is different. Each acre of land has 
its limit of productive capacity. Skill and labor can 
add to the total product, but there is a point beyond 
which no more can be produced. You may grow a 
stalk of wheat on every square inch of ground, but you 
cannot grow two stalks in the same place. Again, if 
you double the amount of labor on an acre, while you 
may and probably will increase your product, you may 
not double it. Two men working in a field may raise 
more than if one man worked alone, but the proportion 
that each receives may be less than the amount he could 
raise working by himself. 

What is true of each field taken separately is true of 
the country, as a whole. When there is only a small 
amount of a commodity raised, then an increase in the 
demand for it, attracting capital towards the industry, 
may open new sections of the country, and ultimately 
increase, not only the amount produced, but the propor- 
tional return per man, i. e. , the return measured by the 
total labor expended, and the total result. On the other 
hand, if much land is already devoted to the production 
of some one product, an increase in the demand will 
cause lands less favorable for its cultivation to be util- 
ized. Production becoming more difficult, the ''propor- 
tional return ' ' will be less than before. The increased 
labor will not meet with a like increase in reward. 
When the cultivation of any commodity in the country 
has been carried to this extent, then it is said that the 
point of diminishing returns for that commodity has 
been reached. If after this more of the commodity is 
produced in response to a greater demand, the average 
effort required to produce a unit quantity of the com- 
modity is greater than before. Such an increase would 
naturally lead us to expect an increase in its price. But 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. II 

the actual effect on the price is even greater than we 
might at first anticipate. Thus suppose it takes 2,000,- 
000 laborers working for two months to raise 200,000,000 
lbs! of tobacco. The demand increases. If the point 
of diminishing returns for tobacco has been passed, the 
increase in the product has to be secured by growing 
tobacco on land less suited to its cultivation. The differ- 
ence between the average cost of production on the old 
and new tobacco lands will depend in each case on the 
physical conditions of the country. We may suppose that 
it will now take 2,500,000 men, working for two months 
to raise 240,000,000 lbs. of tobacco; the 40,000,000 lbs. 
representing the increase in the amount of the demand. 
If tobacco were grown by a co-operative association, each 
worker would receive 96 pounds of tobacco, instead of 
the 100 lbs. which he received before the increase in the 
demand necessitated a resort to poorer tobacco soils. 
But tobacco, or any other commodity, is not grown on a 
co-operative plan. Bach man cultivates his own land, 
or the land he has rented, and no two acres are exactly 
alike. Every pound of tobacco is thus grown under 
different conditions, and has a different cost of produc- 
tion. At any one time, however, for similar grades, 
there is but one price; and this price which rules each 
single article of the product must be high enough to 
repay the labor expended on that portion raised under 
the most unfavorable conditions. Men will not long 
continue to produce any commodity at a loss. If prices 
do not warrant growing a certain product on some of the 
land now utilized for its cultivation, those lands will 
cease to be used. Agricultural prices then are not gov- 
erned by the total effort required to raise the entire pro- 
duct ; but by the cost of production of that portion of 
each commodity grown on the poorest land. The poor- 
est land used for the cultivation of each commodity 
is often spoken of as the present margin for its cultiva- 



12 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

tion. Iii our illustration the increase in price per pound 
of tobacco may be much more than four per cent. , which 
represents the average decrease in the return for each 
man's labor, if tobacco was raised on the cooperative 
plan. The rise in price is represented by the difference 
between the poorest tobacco lands utilized for tobacco, 
before the increase in the demand and that used after 
such increase. The difference depends upon the change 
in the amount of the demand and the physical condi- 
tions of the country. It may be five, ten, or, if all the 
lands in any degree suitable for tobacco have already 
been utilized for the production of that commodity, 
even twenty or thirty in exceptional cases. 

Not only does the increase in the demand for an 
agricultural product, if the point of diminishing returns 
for its cultivation has been passed, raise the cost of the 
product to the consumer; but it has a bad effect on the 
distribution of wealth. That portion of the wealth of 
the community which goes to the owner of land for the 
use of the natural properties of the soil, is called rent. 
I use the term in a restricted sense, and do not include 
the return from the price paid for houses and barns, but 
simply the price which is paid for the fertility of the 
soil, or on account of the land's desirable position. Let 
us see how the excessive demand for some one product 
affects this kind of rent. The price for any commodity 
being regulated by the cost of that portion which is 
grown under the most unfavorable conditions, or in 
other words on the margin for its cultivation, the differ- 
ence between the price and cost of production of the 
commodity on lands well suited for its cultivation is 
often very great. 

If the poorest land ultilized for wheat yielded ten 
bushels to the acre, one who happened to own land 
which could produce fifteen bushels per acre could de- 
mand five bushels of each crop from the person who 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 1 3 

desired to lease it from him. Any increase in the price 
of wheat would not benefit the tenant; it would simply 
compel him to pay the owner so much more rent. That 
part of the rent which is due to the land's capacity for 
growing wheat, would be equal to the price of wheat 
per bushel multiplied by the difference between the 
average number of bushels produced on that land, and 
the average number of bushels raised on land at the 
present time on the margin of cultivation for wheat. 
Thus, with every increase in the demand for wheat, after 
the point of diminishing returns has been passed, two 
factors tend to increase the money-rent of wheat lands. 
The margin for the cultivation of wheat falls ; therefore 
the difference between the amount of wheat which can 
be raised on any old wheat lands and the lands on the 
margin for the cultivation of wheat is increased. But at 
the same time the price of wheat per bushel has risen; 
for price is regulated by the cost of production on the 
margin of cultivation for wheat, and that margin having 
fallen, the cost of production has become greater. The 
farmer who rents his land from the owner is not bene- 
fited, nor is he injured, by a rise in rents. Practically 
he is always laboring on the margin of cultivation. If 
he happens to use better soil than his neighbor, he pays 
a higher rent for the privilege. 

Thus we perceive that the increase in the price of any 
agricultural commodity owing to an increase in the de- 
mand, while it may injure the consumers, does not 
benefit the farmer as a farmer, but rather tends to create 
a landed gentry who live not on their own labor or 
savings, but on those of others; and whose incomes are 
not due to the efforts of themselves, or their ancestors, 
but to the fact that they own a piece of ground, which 
has become a natural monopoly because it is peculiarly 
adapted to the growing of a certain commodity. 

Our short investigation has shown us this much con- 



14 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

cerning production : There is a marked contrast between 
manufactured and agricultural commodities. With the 
former an increase in the demand has no effect on the 
price or the distribution of wealth; while with the latter, 
such an increase may, under certain circumstances, not 
only have a great and permanent effect on the price, but, 
by increasing rent, may tend to cause an unequal distri- 
bution of wealth. The key to the problems which 
surround the subject of foreign trade, as also the refuta- 
tion of the proposition that the cheapness of any com- 
modity is always beneficial, lies in a recognition of the 
fundamental distinction between the effects of increased 
demand on the prices of agricultural and manufactured 
commodities. 

Remembering this distinction, let us take the follow- 
ing illustration of the possible effect of a tariff on all 
clothing. 

Suppose we have two countries "A" and "B." In 
" A" the money rate of wages is one dollar per day; in 
U B" for the same work, eighty cents. The high rate 
of money wages in the first country we may suppose to 
be the result of social of political causes. We can look 
upon "A" as a young country where many new pro- 
jects are being constantly started, and consequently, 
where the demand for labor is greater than the supply. 
In "A" we may imagine that wheat and agricultural 
products are one dollar per bushel. In the second 
country, in spite of the lower rate of wages, on account 
of the poorer quality or limited quantity and therefore 
higher price of the land, the price of wheat is one 
dollar and ten cents per bushel. * 

* The land actually planted in wheat or other agricultural products 
in the country where the wages are comparatively low, need not 
necessarily be poorer in order to make the price higher than in the 
country where the money rate of wages is high. The wages in the 
United States, for example, are higher than in England, although the 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 15 

If trade is unrestricted, the industries of country c 'A' ' 
will be mainly agricultural. Breadstuffs will be ex- 
ported, and in exchange manufactured products will be 
imported. Manufacturing in this country will be at a 
serious disadvantage, for the same work is performed for 
twenty-five cents less in country "B." A protective 
policy is adopted, a duty of thirty per cent, being laid 
on all cloths. It soon becomes cheaper to manufacture 
than to import. Clothes will now be made at home. 
Many laborers will leave agriculture and drift toward 
manufacturing pursuits. The production of food will 
fall off by the amount of agricultural commodities form- 
erly exported; for those who formerly labored to produce 
the agricultural commodities desired by the foreign 
nation, in order to pay for the imported manufactured 
articles, will themselves be employed in manufacturing 
those articles. If now money wages remain the same, 
and the purchasing power of a dollar is increased, then 
certainly the tariff is beneficial. By the purchasing 
power of a dollar I mean its power to buy the things we 
want in the relative proportion in which we desire them. 
The price of silk, for instance, has no effect on the pur- 
chasing power of a dollar to the day laborer. In order 
to see whether a certain course is beneficial, we must 
not only know its effect upon prices^ but also the ways 
in which persons of average means spend their money. 
The way in which the American living on less than one 
thousand dollars per year spends his income is as fol- 
lows:* 

average yield of wheat per acre in the counties of England is from 24 
to 28 bushels; while in our States it is only from 12 to 16 bushels. 
The price of wheat is higher in London, however, than in New York, 
because England cannot raise all the wheat she demands, and there- 
fore must import from us and from other coup tries. 

* Wright, Comparative Wages and Prices. The Sixteenth Annual 
Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics and Labor. 



l6 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

Subsistence 5 J -7 6 per cent. 

Clothing 12.32 " 

Rent ■ 16.20 " 

Fuel 5-io 

Sundries 15-57 " 



Taking these figures for country U A" and assuming 
that the duty raises the cost of clothing 30 per cent., 
then the tariff has increased the cost of living 30 per 
cent, of 12.32 per cent, or 4.896 per cent. But the 
same laborers spend 51.76 per cent, of their income for 
food. The tariff, however, has decreased the demand 
for the agricultural products, formerly exported. If the 
country has previously passed the point of diminishing 
returns for these products, the poorest lands utilized for 
their cultivation after the adoption of the protective 
policy, will be much better than the poorest land for- 
merly used for their production. As before stated, the 
poorest land in "A" used for the production of agri- 
cultural commodities regulates their selling price. 
Therefore the extent of the reduction in the cost of food 
in country "A," owing to the duty on manufactured 
articles, will depend upon the difference between the 
poorest lands used for the production of the agricultural 
commodities exported while the free-trade policy con- 
tinued, and the poorest land used for the production of 
the same commodities after the adoption of the policy 
of protection. The physical conditions of the country 
may be such that there is no difference. Then, as far 
as our argument has gone, there would be no compen- 
sation for the increase in the cost of manufactured arti- 
cles. But can we say a priori that the physical condi- 
tions of any country are necessarily such that the result 
will not be a great fall in the price of agricultural pro- 
ducts ? If meat, bread, etc. , fall ten per cent. , the cost 
of living would be reduced 5. 17 per cent. Then in spite 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 1 7 

of the increase of 30 per cent, in clothing, a dollar will 
buy more than before the adoption of the protective 
policy. By supposing an alteration in the conditions, 
we can increase or diminish the benefits of protection. 

I do not claim that the foregoing illustration proves 
that protection to manufactured articles is a good thing 
for all countries at all times, or that protection is the 
proper policy for the United States. But I do contend 
that it shows we cannot say with the free-trader, ' ' Pro- 
tection is always and necessarily bad. ' ' « The advisa- 
bility of impost duties depends upon circumstances. 
The foregoing idea might be formulated somewhat as 
follows: 

Prop. 1, A. Under certain circumstances a system 
of protection to a large class of manufactured commod- 
ities^ by decreasing the number of agricultural laborers, 
raising the margin of cultivation, and reducing the cost 
of agricultural produce, will increase the purchasing 
power of a dollar. 

This argument, which supports, under certain cir- 
cumstances, a general system of protection to manufac- 
tures, can also be used to show the evil, under similar 
conditions, of a general system of protection to agricul- 
tural products. To force a portion of the population 
into manufactories, will not raise the cost of manufac- 
tured commodities, and may greatly diminish the cost 
of food. But if the point of diminishing returns for 
many agricultural products has already been passed, to 
drive numbers from manufacturing into agriculture, by 
placing duties on all farm products, will certainly fa 1 
to reduce the price of manufactured articles, and will 
greatly increase the cost of food and raw material. 
Thus, Prop. 1, A, when applied to agriculture will read: 

Prop. 1, B. Under certain circumstances, a general 
system ofproteclio?i to agricultural produce, by decreasing 
the number of laborers in the manufactories, may lower 
2 



l8 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

the margin of cultivation, and thereby increase the cost of 
food and raw material, while the cost of manufactured 
commodities will not be reduced. 

The ' ' circumstances ' ' which will make a general pro- 
tection to manufactured articles result in an increase of 
the productive power of a nation, and the purchasing 
power of a dollar, are not confined to cases where the 
nation has passed the point of diminishing returns for 
nearly all the products of agriculture. In fact, if a 
nation must wait until the points of diminishing returns 
have been passed for nearly all the possible products of 
the land, before laying duties on manufactured articles, 
a protective policy will never be adopted. It is rather 
the wrong use of land, than the excess of agricultural 
labor, that is prevented by a judicious tariff. The high 
price that foreign nations are willing to pay for some one 
product, causes it to be cultivated to the exclusion of 
others better adapted to a large portion of the soil. We 
doubt if there is a country in the world where one can 
say there are too many agricultural laborers; but if we 
had free-trade in the United States, there probably would 
be too many farmers producing wheat. Generally the 
reduction of the number of workers in agriculture is 
beneficial, only because the reduction takes place along 
those lines where foreign demand will cause excessive 
production. 

Prop, i, B, deals with a general tariff on agricultural 
products. Such a tariff would be unwise, as the old 
corn laws of England abundantly testify. But, unfier 
some conditions, the same argument might be used to 
defend protection to a single agricultural commodity. 
Take a country which exports one agricultural product, 
such as corn, to pay a large part of her international 
debt. Suppose that the point of diminishing returns for 
corn has been passed, but in spite of this fact, the 
country can sell corn much cheaper than its foreign 



OUR SHEKP AND THE TARIFF. 19 

rival. The foreign country, however, can produce 
potatoes at so low a cost, on account of its social condi- 
tions, or because of the peculiar adaptability of the land 
to potatoes, that it is impossible to raise them profitably 
in the corn-growing country. The point of diminishing 
returns for potatoes in the home country has not been 
reached, for there are practically no potatoes grown. 
The only reason why potatoes are not raised, is because 
they can be produced more cheaply in the foreign coun- 
try. A prohibitory duty is now placed on potatoes. If 
this drives persons out of manufacturing into potato 
raising, a loss will result. But, as it has stopped the 
importation of potatoes, the foreign demand for the 
country's products will tend to decline in proportion to 
the amount of potatoes formerly imported. As corn is 
the principal export, some corn lands will be thrown out 
of cultivation, and many persons formerly engaged in 
raising corn will find it more profitable to raise less 
corn and more potatoes. Good potato lands which were 
formerly considered worthless will be taken into culti- 
vation. 

To illustrate the result of a tariff on potatoes in a 
country where the conditions mentioned exist. Suppose 
a certain farmer made a profit of four do 1 .lar> an acre 
from his land when he planted corn, and three dollars 
from the same land when used for potatoes. He will 
naturally plant corn as often as possible, probably soon 
exhausting the soil. The government by a tariff in- 
creases the price of potatoes, so that the profit on pota- 
toes is four dollars an acre. No more potatoes being 
imported, the demand for corn falls, and our farmer, we 
may suppose, only makes three dollars and seventy-five 
cents growing that cereal. The rise in the price of 
potatoes, and the fall in that of corn, both operate to in- 
crease the acreage devoted to potatoes at the expense of 
the acreage devoted to corn. Taking the country as a 



20 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

whole, there is less corn grown, but more potatoes. The 
worst corn lands formerly producing corn are no longer 
utilized for that purpose. From the standpoint of con- 
sumption, therefore, potatoes are higher, but corn is 
lower. As in our former case, whether the purchasing 
power of a dollar has been increased — in other words, 
whether the advance in the price of one of* the articles 
of our consumption is compensated for by the fall in the 
price of another — depends, not only on the differences in 
prices, but on the way in which we spend our income. 
If corn fell ten per cent, and potatoes rose twenty per 
cent. , but three times as much was spent on corn as on 
potatoes, we would be better off than before the tariff. 

In the following proposition I have tried to formulate 
the ideas above discussed: 

Prop, i, C. Under certain circumstances a duty on 
an agricultural commodity, for which the point of dimin- 
ishing returns has not been reached, by diminishing the 
area devoted to a product which has been cultivated 
beyond the point of diminishing returns, and thus reduc- 
ing the cost of such a product, may increase the purchas- 
ing power of a dollar. 

The ' ( certain circumstances ' ' mentioned in this propo- 
sition, exist when the country under investigation is a 
large exporter of an agricultural product, such as corn, 
for which the point of diminishing returns has been 
more than passed. 

There are other circumstances, however, in which a 
tariff on an agricultural commodity may increase the pur- 
chasing power of a dollar. One of the elements of the 
prosperity of a country is the efficiency of the laborer. 
Efficiency cannot be measured solely by intelligence, 
but intelligence is always a factor, and in many cases 
the most important factor. A worker who spends his 
time fastening the heel of a boot on the sole can be al- 
most, if not quite, as efficient with a moderate as with 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 21 

a high order of intelligence. But the ignorant farmer 
is, as a rule, the wasteful, slovenly, and expensive 
farmer. Such a man produces scarcely enough to 
supply his own imperative needs, and will save little 
or no capital. Thus a country will never be as wealthy 
as its natural resources would lead us to expect, if it 
has an ignorant farming population. But the intelli- 
gent workman and higher type of man requires more 
wages than his less intelligent competitor. The Ameri- 
can can work harder and produce more than the Hun- 
garian, yet the latter, because he demands a low rate 
of wages, is often the cheaper man for the employer 
of labor to engage. Suppose we have a country in 
which dairy products, such as butter, cheese, milk, etc. , 
are not produced, owing to the low price at which they 
can be imported from other countries. We can also 
suppose that there are, as in every country, farmers of 
many different grades of intelligence. What we want 
to do, however, is to discover the prevailing type of 
farmer, or the man who is going to survive in the 
race of competition. Let us take two classes of men: 
one contented with an income of $300, the other, 
more intelligent and efficient, but requiring at least 
$400 per annum to supply him with what "he considers 
the necessaries of life. We will also suppose that the 
higher type of farmer, by working the equivalent of 
one hundred clays of twelve hours each, can produce 
1200 bushels of corn, while the lower type, working the 
same length of time, can only produce, on account of 
his inferior efficiency, 1000 bushels. Though only 
the equivalent of one hundred days of work is spent in 
raising corn or other cereals, the farmer is debarred from 
carrying on any other than agricultural industries. He 
cannot work in a mill half the year and on the farm the 
other half. Neither can he greatly increase his produc- 
tion of corn or wheat, for the planting and reaping of 



22 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

any crop must each be accomplished within the space of 
a fortnight. Under these conditions the lower and less 
efficient laborer will represent the prevailing type of 
farmer. By selling the iooo bushels at 30 cents per 
bushel, he will yet receive $300, or sufficient to enable 
him to live according to his standard. But the higher 
type of man, who is forced to sell his product at the 
same price, only receives $360 for his 1200 bushels, 
which is $40 less than is sufficient to enable him to 
supply himself with what are to him the necessaries of 
life. Under these conditions our higher type of man 
will tend to drift toward the cities, where he will possi- 
bly have to work harder, but where he can obtain suffi- 
cient to support him in the way which he looks upon 
as necessary to a happy existence. Consequently, the 
agriculture production of the country will be conducted 
by lower types of men, who are less efficient producers. 
Under such conditions suppose a duty is placed on 
dairy products, and as a result the intelligent farmer can 
spend the equivalent of fifty days' work out of every year 
attending to cattle ; while he receives for his veal, milk 
and cheese, $160 per year. As a result, the relative 
position of the two grades of farmers is now changed. 
The more efficient farmer gains $160 from his cattle, 
and in order to make $400 per year, he will only have 
to gain $240 from his corn. He can therefore afford to 
sell the corn at twenty cents per bushel. But twenty 
cents a bushel for corn will only bring the lower grade 
of fanner $200 per year, and he either must make $100 
more from the sale of dairy products, or he will be 
driven out of agriculture. By "driven out," I mean 
that he will be unable to put himself in a position to 
support a family and perpetuate his kind. Even if he 
has enough energy to attempt raising cows, as the intelli- 
gent farmer only made one hundred and sixty dollars 
from the sale of his butter, cheese, etc. , it is very ques- 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 23 

tionable whether with the expenditure of fifty days' 
labor the inferior farmer can raise dairy products to the 
value of one hundred dollars. Intelligence is a much 
more important factor in some agricultural pursuits than 
in others. We have supposed that in the growing of 
corn our more intelligent farmer could raise 1200 bushels 
while his less intelligent competitor raised 1000 bushels, 
or a ratio of 12 to 10. In the raising of cattle superior 
intelligence would give a much greater advantage, and 
we may readily suppose that the ratio would be 16 to 9. 

Thus after the duty is placed on dairy products, the 
advantage is on the side of the higher type of farmer. 
This is the "survival of the fittest" in its best sense. 
We may also have a distinct gain to the consumer. 
Dairy products are higher, but corn is lower. As in our 
former illustrations, we have the gain to the country de- 
pending, not only on the alterations in prices, but on 
the relation of the amount of cheese, milk, butter, etc. , 
to the amount of corn, potatoes and wheat consumed. 
If as a result of the tariff dairy products rose twenty-five 
per cent., and all the cereals fell fifteen, but the con- 
sumption of the former was only one-half that of the 
latter, there would be a net gain of 2^ cents on every 
dollar spent for food. 

It may here be asked : If we lessen a tendency for 
intelligent farmers to seek commercial pursuits, will not 
we increase the nation's productive capacity in one 
direction while decreasing it in another? I think not. 
Intelligence in commercial pursuits will always give the 
possessor a great advantage. If the two classes we have 
chosen for our illustration had a relative efficiency in 
the production of cereals of 12 to 10, and in cattle of 16 
to 9, in trade and commerce, intelligence being a still 
more important factor, the efficiency of the same classes 
might stand in the ratio of 2 to 1. The trade and com- 
merce of any country will therefore always be conducted 



24 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

by an intelligent class. But what we need is to have 
efficient producers not only in one but in all industries. 
That nation will be the most progressive where it is im- 
possible for the ignorant, the lazy, and the slovenly to 
succeed in any occupation, and consequently where all 
economic forces tend to eliminate the lower and develop 
the higher type of man. 

In the foregoing I have endeavored to show a third 
class of exceptions to the universality of the doctrine 
that the cheapness of any particular commodity is 
always beneficial. The idea may be expressed some- 
what as follows: 

Prop. I, D. Under certain circumstances a tariff on 
a class of agricultural commodities in which intelligence 
is an important factor, increasing its selling price, will 
give a new industry to intelligent farmers, thereby 
enabling them to 7naintain their standard of life, without 
passing to other ocatpations, while at the same time 
placing them in a position where they will be able to 
icndersell their less intelligent competitors in other 
agricultural commodities, and thus increase to the con- 
sumer the purchasingpower of a dollar. 

Let us now pass to a qualification of the maxim 
' ' cheapness is always desirable, ' ' which is of a some- 
what different character from those already treated. 

The advocates of unrestricted trade frequently state, 
u The object of production is consumption." "Men 
produce, ' ' they say, ' ' to satisfy their desires. Anything 
which renders such satisfaction easier is a good. ' ' Now 
all this is perfectly true, but it is liable to lead us, as it 
has led many able advocates of free-trade, into great 
error, unless we understand the nature of the desires, 
and can distinguish between individual and national 
interests. The satisfaction of one desire may be incom- 
patible with the satisfaction of other and more important 
desires. I will try to show this by a specific illustration. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 25 

L,et us take the desire for tobacco and the desire for 
corn. For simplicity we will suppose that the pleasure 
to be derived from both products is shared by the entire 
population. We may divide the lands actually em- 
ployed in raising tobacco, when tobacco is seven cents a 
pound, into ten different kinds. Suppose the produc- 
tivity of each, after a unit amount of labor has been 
expended, can be represented by 780, 760, 740 . . . 600 
pounds per acre. The cost of raising tobacco on the 
poorest tobacco lands is equal, as was formerly explained, 
to the selling price. We can suppose that the owners 
of the best tobacco fields could sell their product at 
3.846 cents per pound. As their lands, however, do 
not produce all the tobacco demanded at this price, 
other and poorer tobacco lands have been devoted to the 
cultivation of the plant. The price for tobacco has 
risen, until what we may suppose is the present average 
rate of five cents per pound has been reached. At this 
point the demand and supply are equal. The money 
rent of any tobacco land is equal to the number of 
pounds it is capable of growing above the number which, 
for the same amount of work, may be grown on the 
worst tobacco lands under cultivation, multiplied by the 
price of tobacco per pound. Thus the tobacco rent for 
the first land being one hundred and eighty pounds, 
and the price of tobacco being five cents per pound, the 
money rent for the best tobacco land will be $9.00 per 
acre. The land utilized for tobacco, however, is suit- 
able for other crops. The reason the farmer does not 
grow potatoes and corn, is because tobacco pays better. 
The moment he finds it more profitable to raise some- 
thing else, he will do so. 

L,et us now turn to the demand for corn. The sell- 
ing price we will suppose is forty cents per bushel. The 
demand for corn at that price causes certain lands to be 
turned into corn-fields. All those lands which produce 



26 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

corn at less than forty cents per bushel, can occasionally 
be planted with corn. We can divide the lands which 
are capable of raising corn at forty cents or less into 
ten kinds. On the best corn land for a given amount 
of work, which is of course much less than the labor 
required to cultivate a tobacco field, 36 bushels will be 
produced; on the next 34 bushels; on the next 32 
bushels; and so on, until the tenth only produces 18 
bushels. The cost of this last land, which is on the 
present margin of cultivation for corn, being equal to 
the selling price, or forty cents per bushel, the rent of 
any corn land will be, as in the case of the tobacco 
lauds, the difference in the number of bushels of corn 
produced on that land and the number produced on the 
worst land under cultivation, multiplied by the price per 
bushel. Thus the rent for the best corn land will be 
$7.20, for the next best $6.40. On land which can raise 
corn at less than forty cents per bushel, a profit can be 
made by growing corn. Whether a farmer who owns 
such land will grow corn or tobacco, depends upon 
which is the more profitable to him. If he has land 
which is the fourth-grade tobacco land, and at the same 
time the third-grade corn land, he will grow tobacco. 
In corn his profit is only $5. 60 per acre, while in tobacco 
it will be $6.00. 

The government now taxes tobacco fourteen cents per 
pound. As a consequence the amount of the demand 
falls. The poorest tobacco lands are no longer planted 
in tobacco. The margin of cultivation for tobacco ris- 
ing, the cost of production is not so great as before. 
There is a general readjustment of prices. We may 
suppose that the demand and supply for tobacco come 
to an equilibrum, when the fanner's selling price is 
18.158 cents per pound; 4.158 cents representing the 
cost of production on the poorest land and 14 cents re- 
presenting the tax. The worst tobacco lands, those 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 2J 

that produce only 600, 620 and 640 pounds of tobacco 
respectively, can no longer be utilized for tobacco. The 
margin of cultivation for tobacco rising from land which 
will produce 600 pounds per acre to land which will 
produce 720 pounds per acre, the rent for all other 
tobacco land falls; for, as explained, the rent of land at 
any time is the difference between the number of pounds 
of tobacco which it will produce and the number of 
pounds of tobacco which the poorest land in use at that 
time will produce, multiplied by the price per pound 
received by the farmer. For instance, the fourth- 
grade tobacco land is now on the margin of cultivation 
for tobacco. The tobacco rent for this land falls to 
nothing. The rent of the best tobacco lands, estimated 
by their value when utilized for producing tobacco, 
falls from $9.00 to $3.00. A farmer who worked on 
lands not capable of producing more than 720 pounds 
of tobacco, will now raise corn or other agricultural 
products. 

But the tax will not only throw tobacco out of culti- 
vation on the worst grades of tobacco lands, but it will 
also greatly reduce the quantity grown on lands which 
might still raise tobacco at a profit. Take the case 
of land which is in the fourth grade for tobacco, and at 
the same time in the third grade for corn. Before the 
tax tobacco would have been raised, because the 
profits for tobacco and corn stand as $6.00 to $5.60 
per acre. But afterwards corn will be more profita- 
ble, the returns then standing, corn $5.60, tobacco 
nothing. 

In this way a great deal of land formerly planted with 
tobacco will be utilized to cultivate corn, or other agri- 
cultural products. As a consequence the worst corn, 
wheat or potato lands will be thrown out of cultivation; 
for the demand for these products has not increased 
while the extent of the acreage open to their cultiva- 



28 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

tion lias been greatly enlarged. * All this will effect a 
reduction in the price of corn and similar commodities. 
Thus, the tax on tobacco not only alters the value of 
tobacco lands, but of corn and wheat lands as well. In 
opening new fields for other agricultural products, the 
tax may diminish the cost of all agricultural production ; 
not because taxation makes land more fertile, but be- 
cause in this case it raises the margin of cultivation. In 
so far as any one is a consumer of tobacco, he will be in- 
jured by the tax; but if the whole people can obtain 
bread, meat, potatoes, and other necessaries of life at a 
reduced cost, will any claim that the country is not 
benefited? When we speak about production being 
solely for the purpose of satisfying the desires of man, 
we must remember that a desire, even if it is shared by 
all the population, may not be in harmony with national 
progress. 

This example shows how intimate is the connection 
between the price of one agricultural product and 
another, and proves that it is impossible to gain a 
knowledge of economic laws by simply examining the 
production of one commodity. Here is the error of 
the old political economist. He considered his work 
accomplished when he indicated how one desire of man 
taken by itself could be gratified, forgetting that some 
desires may be mutually destructive. The proposi- 
tion that a tax on one commodity may, under certain 
c rcumstances, increase the productive power of the 
community, is even to-day looked upon by many as 
absurd. Yet in our illustration we have shown condi- 

* A specific example may be found in our own country. Many 
tobacco fields in Kentucky could be made better corn fields than 
many soils in other and colder States, which are now utilized foi 
growing corn. If the profit from raising tobacco should from any 
cause decline, these fields, now planted in tobacco, might be planted 
in corn, and much land on which corn is now raised at greater ex- 
pense would be used for other and more suitable purposes. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 29 

tions where a tax 011 one commodity does increase the 
productive power of the nation. It is simply applying 
to man a well-known principle, now recognized by 
scientists, but persistently ignored by many econo- 
mists. A great increase in one species of animals re- 
duces the numbers of another which lives on similar 
food. The seals of Alaska and the otters which haunt 
the rivers running into the ocean, both feed on the 
salmon. An increase in the number of seals will be 
accompanied by a decrease in the number of otters.* 
Two species consuming the same kind of food can 
seldom exist in the same district. The brown rat of 
Turkey on his migration to Europe, rendered it im- 
possible for the native black rat, who lived on the 
same kind of food, to find the sustenance necessary for 
his existence. Consequently the black rat is practi- 
cally extinct. In the same way two agricultural pro- 
ducts, utilizing soils of the same character, are seldom 
cultivated in the same country. Production will be 
confined to products for which the people have the 
strongest desire. Again, if man extinguished all other 
animals in order to have more room to raise buffaloes, 
because people were willing to pay an enormous price 
for the meat and hide of that animal, there would still 
only be a limited number of buffaloes on the earth, for 
there is only a limited amount of food suitable for their 
consumption. There could not be enough buffalo meat 
raised to supply the present population of the earth. 
By diversifying the species a far greater number of 
animals can exist. The same is true of agriculture. If 
we all tried to live on one product, only lands suitable 
for its cultivation could be used. The greatest produc- 
tion will result in diversity. Taxing one commodity to 

* These illustrations are taken from Wallace's Darwinism, where 
the reader will also find the elementary principles of the struggle for 
existence here referred to popularly explained. 



30 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

cheapen another, may be ridiculed by the thoughtless; 
yet, if we wish to cheapen song-birds in the United 
States, would we not use every means in our power to 
decrease the number of sparrows? And if taxation 
lessens the demand for an article, may it not reduce its 
production, and open new fields for the cultivation of 
the commodity we desire to cheapen; just as the gun 
which destroys the sparrow will indirectly leave more 
food to the species we desire to introduce ? 

The illustration of taxing tobacco to cheapen corn is 
in many respects similar to our demonstration of Propo- 
sition i, C. In one case we make the raising of potatoes 
profitable, and increase their production at the expense 
of corn; in the other the production of tobacco is de- 
creased, giving a larger acreage for the necessaries of 
life. They both depend upon the same general princi- 
ple; the greater productive power resulting from a 
closer adjustment to physical conditions. A passive 
national policy favors the unrestrained gratification of 
one desire at the expense of all others, and allows the 
excessive cultivation of some one commodity to exhaust 
the soil, causing one crop to be raised in places where 
others should be cultivated. All this increases the 
rent which goes to the landlord, and lowers the pur- 
chasing power of a dollar to all classes of society. It is 
this confusion between the satisfaction of a present par- 
ticular desire, and the good of the people, which has 
given so much strength to the creed of free-trade among 
the masses. For instance, no formula appeals more 
strongly to the average man, than the oft-quoted asser- 
tion, ' ' We have no right to tax the many for the benefit 
of the few. ' ' Certainly we have no right to tax the 
nation for the benefit of a class. But we should remem- 
ber that the proposition can be inverted. If we have 
no right to tax the many for the benefit of a class, 
neither have we the right to refrain from taxing them 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 31 

for a similar object. If a tax on tobacco will benefit the 
country by increasing our productive power, to refuse 
to tax it would be sacrificing the best interests of the 
country for the benefit of a single industry. Again, if 
we have no right to sacrifice the good of the nation for 
the benefit of a portion of the community, neither 
should we ever permit the satisfaction of any one desire, 
though shared by all the people, to impede national 
progress. The desire for a commodity may be very 
strong, but if its gratification leads to poverty and want, 
or even retards the growth qf higher wants, to weaken 
or eliminate this desire will certainly be an act of far- 
seeing statesmanship. 

We must bear in mind that there are two ways in 
which the productive power of a people can be increased. 
The first, and the one on which the greatest stress has 
heretofore been laid, is by rendering the methods of 
producing the things we now desire easier, as by inven- 
tions, discoveries, etc. The second, and by far the 
more important method, lies in changing the desires of 
the people — making their wants more in harmony with 
their surroundings. 

Take a people with a strong desire for butter, made 
from the milk of a cow. Inventions to aid churning 
will certainly increase the productive power of the com- 
munity. But suppose the people could be induced to 
use in the place of the cheaper grades of cow's butter, 
some substitute, as oleomargarine, which could be easily 
and even more cheaply produced. The benefit to be 
derived from this change in desire, will be much more 
substantial than any possible invention in making 
butter. 

To take another illustration. Imagine a country 
where if 10,000,000 pounds of rice were produced, the 
selling price would be three cents per pound. At the 
same time wheat is grown with difficulty. The people 



32 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

being largely immigrants, or the descendants of im- 
migrants, from good wheat countries, eat little rice, 
but demand wheat in large quantities. Their present 
condition, however, requires that wheat should be im- 
ported from other countries. If they ate more rice and 
less wheat they would sustain life, which is the object 
of consuming food, as well as they do now, and with 
much less effort. Suppose the government lays an im- 
port duty on wheat, causing it to rise in price. The 
difference between the cost of wheat and rice is still 
further increased, with the result that more rice is con- 
sumed and less wheat. At the same time rice being 
cheap in comparison with bread, the total amount spent 
on food may be reduced, although the people do not 
eat as much of that particular kind which their an- 
cestors, living under different circumstances, were led 
to desire. Soon however the people will become ac- 
customed to their new diet. On the removal of the 
duty they will not be apt to return to their old ex- 
cessive consumption of wheat. Custom made their 
ancestors fond of wheat, and the custom of eating less 
wheat and more rice will again regulate the desires of 
their descendants. By the duty the productive power 
of the people has been increased. It has forced them 
into closer adjustment with their surroundings, and 
placed them in a position to feed themselves with less 
effort. 

Taxation is usually a burden on the consumption of 
the commodity taxed. To prove that it is a benefit to 
the community, we must find some compensation in 
that it increases the productive power of the nation, 
either by making it easier for us to gratify our present 
desires taken as a whole, or forcing our desires them- 
selves into greater conformity with our environment. 
Propositions r, A and i, C dealt with the increase of 
the purchasing power of a dollar, spent in the ways we 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 33 

now spend our income, resulting from a tax on manu- 
factured imports or certain agricultural commodities. 
The last discussion shows that protective duties may be 
used to unconsciously bend our desires into their proper 
channels, i. e. more clearly in accordance with our 
conditions. 

The principle on which this last protection rests may 
be expressed as follows: 

Prop. 2. Under certain circumstances a)i impost duty 
on one commodity, enhancing its price, will lower the 
cost of living, by increasing the cojisumption of other 
commodities which serve the same ends, and can be pro- 
duced by a smaller expenditicre of labor than was re- 
quired to produce the products exchanged for the taxed 
commodity. 

The foregoing is a defence of protection as a perma- 
nent policy, based on the exceptions to the "cheaper 
the better ' ' theory of free-trade. By permanent protec- 
tion I do not mean protection which must last forever; 
but rather protection which is held to be wise because 
of certain economic conditions. Wherever these condi- 
tions are found, a policy of protection is the proper one 
for that country to adopt; but if the conditions should 
cease to exist, protection would cease to be expedient. 
On the other hand, what I mean by temporary protec- 
tion, in distinction from the above, is protection which 
is expedient owing to some special cause, which cause 
the mere operation of the duty tends to remove. L,ike 
permanent protection, temporary protection is under 
certain circumstances an advantage. 

When, for instance, we have a reasonable hope that 
we will soon be able to produce the commodity at home 
with less effort than is now required to produce the 
articles exported to pay for the product one proposes to 
protect, no one will doubt the expediency of a duty, if 
it increases the prospects of a speedy establishment of 
3 



34 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

the industry. It is easy to demonstrate that protection 
has the effect of stimulating an industry not heretofore 
established. An old and well grounded industry will 
be carried on when the profits are very small; but in 
order to induce persons to make industrial experiments, 
high profits must be practically insured. The introduc- 
tion of a breed of stock, the establishment of a certain 
manufacturing industry, may be retarded for years, not 
because it would not be profitable if once established, 
but solely because prices are not sufficient to warrant 
experiments. These remarks are not confined to "In- 
fant Industries y Many industries, long established, 
may be conducted in antiquated and expensive ways, 
and prices may not warrant the outlay of labor and 
capital necessary to introduce the new methods. Tem- 
porary stimulation by protection is as necessary in such 
a case, as if the industry had not advanced beyond an 
embryo state. The duty should be high enough to in- 
sure good profits, and induce many to enter the industry. 
In time the home production will exceed the home de- 
mand at the high prices, and consequently the cost to 
the consumer will fall to the basis of ordinary profits to 
the producer. The duty can now be discarded as use- 
less, for under our supposition the industry being firmly 
established, the cost of production is less than the cost 
in foreign countries. Thus, our third and last proposi- 
tion can be stated as follows : 

Prop. 3. Under certain circumstances a duty on a com- 
modity which is now imported, but which could be pro- 
duced at a lower cost at home if the industry was once 
firmly established on a proper basis, will insure high 
enough profits to induce many persons to enter the in- 
dustry, who by their competition with each other will 
reduce the selling price of the commodity below the price 
at which it was formerly imported, and thus increase the 
purchasing power of a dollar. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 35 

I have attempted to indicate the lines on which I be- 
lieve a tariff on raw wool, or other protective tariff, must 
be defended. The advocates of protection must prove 
one of four things: 

Hither that as a consequence of the tariff on wool, the 
present desires of the people are more easily attained, 
on account of a reduction in the cost of other agricul- 
tural products, owing to the margin for their cultivation 
being raised. 

Or: That the same result is accomplished because of 
the increase in the efficiency of the agricultural popula- 
tion. 

Or: That the desires of the people of our country are 
brought into greater conformity with their surroundings. 

Or: That the sheep industry only needs stimulation 
to put us in a position where we will be able to produce 
wool and mutton as cheaply as any country in the world. 

The object of protection is to increase the productive 
power of the people; in other words, to enable them to 
buy more commodities — to satisfy their wants more 
easily than they did before. I have shown that under 
given conditions a duty will increase the purchasing 
power of a dollar. It will be observed that the founda- 
tion of the protectionist's argument is similar to that of 
the free-trader. Each attempts to show that the practi- 
cal adoption of his ideas will increase the incomes of 
the people, by enabling them to buy more. The differ- 
ence in their conclusions is due to differences in the way 
they look at society and the production of wealth. The 
free-trader examines separately each industry. He sees 
that the prices of protected commodities are apt to rise, 
and then jumps to the conclusion that protection is bad. 
The protectionist examines more closely the nature of 
production as it actually is, and the relation of the pro- 
duction of one commodity to that of another. He also 
looks at the effect which demand has on price, and is 



$6 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

forced to the conclusion that protection under certain 
circumstances is beneficial, because, while it may not 
enable us to obtain the commodity protected at a re- 
duced cost, it nevertheless reduces the cost at which 
other commodities can be produced. 

We have shown five distinct ways in which a tariff 
may be beneficial to a country. There is no reason, 
however, why they may not all operate at one time. A 
duty which enables the people to satisfy their present 
desires with less effort than before, may likewise tend 
to make them live more in harmony with their environ- 
ment, and also ultimately establish the protected indus- 
try so firmly that their products will undersell those of 
their foreign rivals. 



CHAPTER II. 

WHEAT AND CLOTHES: OR THE CAUSE OF AGRICUL- 
TURAL DEPRESSION, AND ITS REMEDY. 

Before we enter upon a specific description of the 
wool industry, there are a few facts concerning the pres- 
ent condition of agriculture which we should consider. 
There has existed throughout the world, and especially 
in our own country, a marked depression in agricultural 
industries. Farmers complain that the prices they re- 
ceive for their corn and wheat do not repay the labor of 
cultivation. The effect of this condition is plainly 
shown in the character of the population settling Okla- 
homa. The majority are persons who have left com- 
fortable homes in the Central States. The tilling of 
any but virgin soil has ceased to be remunerative. It 
is not that the land in the old States is any less produc- 
tive, though in these States for some products we do 
observe a slight decrease in the return per acre. The 
cause of the depression lies in the fact that prices have 
declined, and a steady market for the staple crops is a 
thing of the past. 

Some light will be thrown on the cause of this de- 
pression, and its remedy, if we examine a section where 
the condition of agricultural interests is especially un- 
favorable. Let us take the belt of country lying im- 
mediately north of the Ohio River, in the States of 
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The average yield of wheat 
per acre in these States is 11.7, 13.9 and 13.7 respect- 
ively.* If we take the southern section in the first 
two states, we will only find two counties, Hamilton 

* 1888. 
(37) 



38 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

in Ohio and Pusey in Indiana, which have an average 
yield for wheat higher than the average for the State. 
Indeed, the returns from the majority of the southern 
counties show that their average yield is only ten 
bushels to an acre, while some, as Scott county in In- 
diana, will run as low as eight bushels. The average 
yield of wheat for the southern counties of Illinois is 
also considerably below the yield of the counties in the 
central and northern sections of the State. At the same 
time we find that since 1870 the number of acres de- 
voted to the cultivation of wheat in the belt of country 
under discussion has increased by one, two, three, and 
even four hundred per cent, though it is true that the 
greater part of this increase took place in the decade 
ending with 1880. Since 1870 the average return per 
acre has either remained stationary or slightly fallen off. 
In no case, we understand, is the average acreage for a 
county in the southern section of any of these States 
higher in the last five years than the average for the five 
years ending with 1870. 

Simultaneously with the slight decrease in the return 
per acre, there has been a considerable fall in prices. 
This decline in values has not been continuous; but if 
we take the period since 1868 we see that not only has 
the value of a bushel of wheat greatly diminished, but 
the value of a bushel of corn has likewise declined. 
The total fall in wheat has been between 40 and 55 
per cent. Part of the fall in prices is compensated for 
by the fall in the rates of transportation. Thus in 
1870 the average rate for transporting a bushel of 
wheat from Chicago to New York was 28^ cents; in 
1889 the rate was 13 cents, or a difference of 15^ 
cents. But during the same period the average price 
of wheat in New York fell from $1.65 to 86 cents pel 
bushel, a fall of 79 cents; making a net loss in the 
return of 63^ cents. The net loss in the return for a 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 39 

bushel of corn is about 20 cents. Thus we observe on 
the one hand a slight decrease in the average yield per 
acre for the two great staple crops, which indicates a t 
slight increase in the cost of production; while on the 
other hand we observe a great decrease in the price per 
bushel. 

The main reason for this unnatural and thoroughly 
unhealthy state is to be found in the tendency to the 
over-production of such crops as corn and wheat in all 
countries where new land is constantly being opened 
for settlement and brought under cultivation. 

The farmer in any thoroughly settled portion of the 
country, such as Illinois, usually has several sources of in- 
come from a variety of crops, and is seldom exclusively 
devoted to the production of one commodity. But in 
newly settled Territories, it is different. Land being 
cheap and labor dear, the tendency is to raise large quan- 
tities of some one crop. For this reason the northwest 
has become a great wheat region, the cultivation of that 
cereal having increased with marvelous rapidity. Thus 
in Dakota in 1870, only 181,284 bushels were raised. In 
1888, however, there were 38,036,000 bushels. The 
same increase is seen in Montana. In 1870 the Terri- 
tory was practically a wilderness. In 1880 only 468,688 
bushels were produced, but in 1888 the crop amounted to 
2,001,000 bushels. While there exists in every country 
a tendency to increase the production of the staple crops 
with each new section opened for settlement, the com- 
parative ease with which railroads can be laid on the 
prairies, and the facility with which land devoid of 
timber can be brought under cultivation, make this 
tendency very marked in the United States. At the 
same time there seldom has been, and is not now, a cor- 
responding increase in the demand for these crops. 
Consequently the prices of staple commodities fell at the 
commencement of the period of railroad construction in 



40 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

1869; not because of the decrease in the cost of their 
cultivation, but because of their over-production. 

A reduction in earning capacity such as the decline 
in prices implies, falls with greater severity on the 
farmer than on any other class of society. In our 
country he belongs to the debtor class, paying out in 
fixed charges a large proportion of his income. The 
laborer can reduce his personal expenses, but the farm- 
er's taxes and the interest on his mortgage are the same 
in bad as in good seasons. The rise and fall in the 
price of the commodities he produces have no effect on 
the amount of his" mortgage. Thus it is more important 
that he should have a steady market for his products, 
than that he should pay the lowest possible price for his 
clothes. What the farmer wants is the ability to earn a 
living. 

There are two possible remedies for the over-produc- 
tion of the staple crops. We can open our ports freely 
to the products of foreign mills, and try to increase the 
foreign demand for wheat and corn. Such a course 
would stop the wholesome tendency to diversify our in- 
dustries, close large numbers of our factories, and throw 
thousands of hands out of employment. It might even 
compel the mechanic to go west and try to produce 
wheat and corn, thus increasing instead of diminishing 
our present difficulties. The other remedy strikes di- 
rectly at the cause of the evil, without disturbing the 
present system of encouraging the home production of 
manufactured articles. If with every fall in the price of 
corn or wheat, the farmer of our older States could de- 
crease his production of those commodities, and in- 
crease the acreage devoted to some other crop, or breed 
more stock, the demand and supply of the staple pro- 
ducts, in spite of the constant development of new ter- 
ritory, would always have a tendency to return to their 
normal condition. As long as a nation has undeveloped 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 41 

territory continually being opened for settlement, she 
should constantly aid the farmer in the old districts to 
counteract the depressing effect of a fall in the price of 
staple products, by aiding in the development of new 
agricultural industries. As a matter of fact, our govern- 
nment, until recently, has done little in this direction. 
From this inaction spring the farmer's present diffi- 
culties. The raising of horses, pigs, and to a certain 
extent dairy products, are industries fully developed, and 
only capable of a normal increase from year to year. 
The demand for the products of these industries was, 
and still is satisfied, but the opening of new territory, 
and the consequent tendency to the over-production 
of the staple crops continues. To relieve the depres- 
sion consequent on the fall in prices, our fanner, as was 
shown in the case of the region along the Ohio, has at- 
tempted to do exactly what he should not have done. 
He has either tried to keep up his income by increasing 
the average acreage devoted to wheat or corn, thereby 
still further depreciating the value of those commodi- 
ties, or, hoping for an improvement in prices, he has 
continued to plant his corn and wheat fields at a loss, 
meeting the year's expenses by increasing the mortgage 
on his land. 

We have selected a particular portion of the country, 
not because it was the only part, unfortunately, where 
the condition of agriculture is unfavorable, but because 
it is sufficiently far west to show that agricultural de- 
pression is not confined simply to those sections of our 
country where the most energetic members of the com- 
munity have for generations either migrated to the edge 
of civilization, or removed to the large cities. The 
agricultural interests in many Eastern States seem to be 
passing through a period of stagnation or decline, and 
the steady depopulation of whole counties is shown by 
the change from small to large farms. The crying need 



42 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

of our farming population is the establishment of new 
agricultural industries. It is especially important to 
have in those districts where the yield per acre of 
wheat or corn is small, an industry which will utilize 
the poorest land now devoted to either of these cereals, 
and also bring into use other lands at present lying 
waste. 

Of course if this decline in value of agricultural 
commodities, which is the cause of the depression exist- 
ing in large districts in the East, and a great deal of 
suffering in the West, was itself caused by any perma- 
nent inferiority of the natural resources of the soil, it 
would be folly to attempt to counteract it. But the de- 
pression is not due to permanent causes. The soil in 
the Middle Atlantic and Central Western States is 
excellent. To be sure, in the district along the Ohio 
which we have taken as an example, it is no longer 
virgin. Montana and Dakota have certain temporary 
advantages in this respect. But the great fall in the 
value of the staple commodities is not to be accounted 
for by any such slight differences in the cost of produc- 
tion. As has been shown, it arises from the fact that 
the production of certain crops has outrun the demand 
at the old prices. We should be willing to make no in- 
considerable sacrifice to avoid the possibility of our agri- 
cultural population being driven to and fro over the 
country with every temporary change in the value of the 
staple products. It needs little demonstration to estab- 
lish that this can only be accomplished by the continu- 
ally introducing new industries, such as sheep-raising, 
to which farmers can resort when such products as corn 
and wheat fail. In the end such a course will increase 
the productive capacity of our agricultural population, 
thereby reducing the cost to the consumer of all agri- 
cultural products. For the depopulation of any section 
of the country, the long years of useless effort to over- 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 43 

come adverse circumstances, and the individual suffer- 
ing which the struggle entails, together with the amount 
of capital which is wasted, are heavy blows to the pro- 
ductive forces of any nation. A people who are contin- 
ually forced to alter their habitation and whose future is 
uncertain, will rapidly cease to care to accumulate capital, 
and become indolent and thriftless. The establishment 
of a new agricultural industry, or the increase of one 
already established, such as sheep husbandry, will not 
be beneficial in that it directly reduces the cost of the 
consumption of wheat or any other agricultural com- 
modities now exported. The benefit from the firm estab- 
lishment of such an industry will rather spring from the 
fact that it will prevent the waste of productive force 
which will inevitably result if our agricultural pop Na- 
tion has to change its location with every variation 
caused by the instability of foreign prices, in the value 
of our staple commodities. 

The facts that we have pointed out form an argument 
in favor of the tariff on raw wool to this extent: They 
show that our agricultural population needs the estab- 
lishment of a new industry or the increase of one only 
partially established. The facts also show that if we do 
not do this, the present depression of agricultural inter- 
ests will continue. Thus the extent of the benefit which 
it is intended to confer upon the country by the tariff 
on wool is very large. The amount of the sacrifice 
which the duty involves now demands consideration. 

One of the arguments of the opponents of a tariff on 
raw wool is that it increases the price of clothing, while 
another asserts that it forces us to use cotton instead of 
wool. Taken together, the statements are in a sense 
mutually contradictory. If the tariff on wool tends to 
lead us to use more cotton in our clothes than we other- 
wise would, we may dress just as cheaply, though differ- 
ently than before. Whether we will be dressed as well, 



44 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

depends upon the relative utility of cotton and wool in 
clothing. That a duty on one article does increase the 
consumption of its substitute, is beyond dispute. The 
Secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association esti- 
mates that there is now one pound of cotton and shoddy 
used in so-called woolen goods for every pound of wool. 
In the Census of 1880 the proportion was one pound of 
cotton and shoddy to four pounds of wool. On the 
other hand, I am informed by manufacturers in England 
that the proportion of wool in woolen goods used by the 
people of Great Britain during the same period has cer- 
tainly not diminished, and has probably increased. 

Clothes, however, are not the only commodities in 
which the two fabrics can be used interchangeably. 
Carpets, furniture, coverings, curtains, blankets, can 
also be made of wool or cotton. To determine whether 
it would be a good thing for us Americans to use more 
cotton than we do, we would have to investigate the 
relative advantages and cost of the fabrics in the various 
uses in which they are employed. The data at hand 
are entirely inadequate for an intelligent investigation of 
such a complicated problem. The facts, however, con- 
cerning clothes, as far as we have them, seem to indicate 
that the tariff on wool or woolens, through a disadvant- 
age as far as the consumption of woolen cloth is con- 
cerned, is not the burden on the cost of living which 
the advocates of free raw material, or complete freedom 
of foreign trade, would have us believe. The object of 
clothing is health and warmth. Roughly speaking, we 
can obtain cotton at ten cents per pound, and without 
our present duty, scoured wool at forty cents per pound. 
Where possible without endangering health, the cheaper 
fabric ought to be employed. From a hygienic stand- 
point the proportion of wool which should be used de- 
pends upon climate. When pressed into solid blocks 
the conductivity of the substance of which cotton is 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 45 

composed is less than that of wool; being .000111 to 
.000122 (C. C. G. units). Woolen fibre, however, unlike 
cotton, does not grow in a solid core, but is full of in- 
terstices, and therefore contains large quantities of air. 
Now the conductivity of air is considerably less than 
that of either cotton or wool. In C. C. G. units it is 
only .0000558, or one-half that of cotton, and thus from 
the structure of the fibre, a woolen garment is warmer 
than one of equal weight made of cotton. This difference 
is also increased by the way in which it is woven. 
Loose-woven fabrics allow the air to enter between the 
fibres, and are therefore warmer in a still atmosphere, 
while tightly- woven goods are better adapted to strong 
winds. Wool, on account of its felting properties, as 
explained in the next chapter, is especially adapted to 
loose weaving. The colder the climate the larger the 
proportion of wool which is necessary for our comfort 
and health. 

While the substance of the cotton fibre, apart from its 
structure, is not as good a conductor of heat as the sub- 
stance of the wool fibre, wet cotton is an excellent con- 
ductor. Consequently in all except very warm climates 
woolen underclothes are decidedly to be preferred; as 
the slightest perspiration largely increases the conduc- 
tivity of the cotton, rendering the wearer liable to sud- 
den chills, after overheating. It is on account of the 
excellent conductive powers of the cotton when wet that 
it is generally supposed cotton underclothes do not dry 
as fast as wool. As a matter of fact, however, woolen 
clothes hung on a line will not dry as fast as cotton 
clothes, for the reason that the structure of the woolen 
fibres, which allows them to contain large quantities of 
air, also allows them to absorb, when thoroughly soaked, 
a large quantity of water. 

As far as the wearing or lasting properties of woolen 
and cotton cloths are concerned, there have been no 



46 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

scientific experiments, but experience seems to show that 
there is little difference in this respect between the 
fabrics. But when there is a considerable strain in wear- 
ing, the greater elasticity of wool makes woolen cloth 
more durable than cotton. 

This brief outline of the subject is sufficient to indi- 
cate that each section of our country should use cotton 
and wool in a different proportion. In winter, wool 
should be used in the undergarments, and more or less 
in the outer garments, of those living north of the 
Gulf States. The surface of all cloths, and especially 
of all overcoatings meant to be worn in damp climates, 
such as the climate of Boston and on the sea-shore gen- 
erally, should be of wool. In the West, where the air is 
dryer, less wool is required. On the other hand, in sum- 
mer we could well afford, in nearly all sections of the 
U. S., to have our outer garments exclusively of cotton. 
The important point, however, is that our climatic con- 
ditions are essentially our own, not those of other coun- 
tries. We should not take our fashions in clothing from 
a people who have a different climate and a different rela- 
tive cost of cotton and woolen cloth. For of this we 
may feel assured, that as long as we Americans adopt 
European fashions, so long will we waste an enor- 
mous amount of productive force trying to live accord- 
ing to English, or French, or German, rather than 
according to our own conditions. Everything which 
renders us less dependent on foreign models for style and 
manner of living, is good in so far as it allows the in- 
fluence of our own surroundings to produce their natural 
effect. 

Whether we should use a larger portion of cotton or 
wool than we do now, is a question which it is impos- 
sible to decide. In one section perhaps we should wear 
more cotton; in another a greater proportion of wool. 
But certainly over a large part of our country it would 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 47 

be unwise for us to wear anything like the proportion 
of wool which is used in England. That country has 
a very damp climate, but heavy rains are practically 
unknown. With us, on the other hand, the atmos- 
phere as a rule is dry, but throughout the year, and 
especially in summer, we are liable to have heavy 
rains. In England, therefore, woolen garments are 
always necessary, and at the same time always form a 
sufficient protection. Our heavy rains, particularly 
in the West, make rubber coats essential, while when 
it is clear, the dryness of the atmosphere, and the ex- 
treme heat of summer, render useless the large pro- 
portion of wool which is usually found in English 
clothes. Our climate gives us the advantage of being 
able to wear clothes containing relatively a larger 
amount of the cheaper fabric. Yet with the present 
tendency to follow the fashions of foreigners, we would 
undoubtedly use almost as large a proportion of wool in 
our clothing as the Englishman, if wool in relation with 
cotton was as cheap with us as it is in England. As the 
tariff undoubtedly has the effect of lessening the demand 
for woolen clothes below what it otherwise would be, in 
so far it is beneficial. Thus instead of being a burden 
on the cost of living, our duty on wool may ultimately 
enable us to live more cheaply, in that it will induce us 
to conform to our environment more closely than we do 
at present. 

Whether, as a matter of fact, the tariff on wool is 
necessary to the increase of the industry, depends upon 
the actual condition of sheep husbandry. The parts of 
our country which are favorable to the development of 
sheep raising, and the consequent extent of the relief to 
our agricultural population which we may expect from 
its growth, can likewise only be known after we ex- 
amine these conditions. To their investigation it is 
now time to turn our attention. 



CHAPTER III. 



SHEEP AND WOOL. 



In order to appreciate any problem connected with the 
sheep husbandry of the nation, we must understand the 
fundamental distinction between the different kinds of 
sheep. Among thoroughbred sheep there are mutton 
and fine wool breeds. This is not saying that the sheep 
which produce fine wool cannot be eaten, but simply that 
those bearing what is at present considered the most de- 
sirable wool, or the finest wool in comparison with those 
whose fleece is of a coarser grade, are light in frame, are 
fattened with difficulty, and produce mutton which is 
coarse-grained and unsavory. 

But why is "fine wool" so greatly in demand? 
Wool is a species of hair. The fibre is composed of 
cups, superimposed and fitting closely into one another, 
having a somewhat striking resemblance to a pile of 
tumblers. At or near the centre is a solid core. If we 
pass the fibre through the finger, so as to press the edges 
of the cups toward the core, the surface feels smooth; 
but if we reverse the movement, the edges of the cups 
are raised, and give a slight sensation of roughness. 
The cups are called serrations, the edges causing the 
fibre to appear serrated under the microscope. In the 
wool from the finer Australian and Silesian breeds of 
merinos, the number of serrations will average twenty- 
five hundred to an inch; in that from the Cotswold and 
Leicester, eighteen hundred; while frequently less than 
five hundred can be counted in the coarse Algerian wool. 
As a rule it may be said that the fineness of the fibre, or 
its diameter, is directly as the number of serrations. . 

(48) 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 49 

To this peculiar cup-like structure wool owes much 
of its usefulness. If the fibres are rubbed together when 
wet, the edges of the cups become interlocked and 
entangled. The resulting solid mass is called felt, and 
the process is known as felting. 

Carding is also dependent upon the number of ser- 
rations. Ordinarily in dealing with fibres, the first ob- 
ject is to draw all the fibres parallel with each other, and 
roll them into a sliver or loose skein. Yarn is com- 
posed of one or more slivers twisted on the spinning 
mule. In carding the object is to entangle and entwine 
the fibres. The resulting sliver, instead of being of par- 
allel fibres to which quite a twist must be given in order 
to hold them together, is composed of fibres already so 
interlocked that only a moderate twist is necessary to 
preserve its shape. What is known as hard spun yarn, 
is yarn in which the slivers have been twisted to a con- 
siderable degree. Woolen yarn, except in making 
woolen warp, is never "hard spun," though when de- 
signed for clothes it is always twisted more than the 
yarn which enters into hosiery and knit goods. The 
absence of hard spinning in woolen cloths lends to 
woolens lightness, combined with bulk and strength. 

As the process of carding depends upon the felting 
qualities of the wool, and the felting qualities depend on 
the number of serrations, which in their turn indicate 
the fineness of the fibre, it is only the finer fibres which 
can be carded. True, the coarse kinds of fibre and hair 
are passed through the carding engine, but these are 
alw r ays mixed with some wool of good felting properties, 
in order to preserve the shape of the sliver. In the long 
coarse wools, the fibres must be drawn parallel; treated, 
in other words, like cotton. To do this the processes 
of gilling and combing are employed, and the re- 
sulting yarn is called worsted, just as woolen yarn 
results from the process of carding. Here then we have 
4 



50 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

the fundamental distinction between the woolens and 
worsteds. In woolens the fibres are crossed and inter- 
locked; in worsted, like the fibres of plants, they are 
drawn parallel. 

There is just as much theoretic distinction as ever 
between woolen and worsted yarns. It is the character 
of wool entering into worsted yarns which has changed. 
When hand-combs were alone employed, no wool under 
five inches in staple or length could be combed. In 
1840, Heilman invented a machine which, by separating 
the long wool or tops from the short wool or noils, and 
at the same time drawing the long fibres parallel, per- 
formed by machinery the work of the hand-comber. 
This device was followed in 1853 by the invention of 
the Noble, or circular combing machine. The latter 
was so constructed that it was able to comb wool of com- 
paratively short staple. But the great change in the 
character of the wool used in worsted did not come 
until the gradual perfection of the Holden square mo- 
tion machine, and what is known as the French process 
of combing. The first patent for the Holden machine 
was taken out in 1848, and improvements are still being 
made in its construction. It is now possible to comb 
with advantage, fibres of three-inch staple, and even 
fibres from one and a half to two inches in staple can be 
used. As a result of these inventions, the finer and 
shorter staple wools are employed in both carding and 
combing. In fact, though pure merino wool is not gen- 
erally combed, wool which is cut from a breed known as 
the Delaine merino, and which is a little over three inches 
in length, but in which the serrations are somewhat less 
numerous than in that grown on the pure merino, 
makes an excellent combing wool. On the other hand, 
the improvement in carding enables us to card wools of 
four to five inches in length, though we cannot as yet 
card long combing wool. The long-wool sheep, who 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 51 

once had the monopoly of the worsted trade, have thus 
of late years been almost driven from the market, while 
as a result of the increased variety of wools which can 
be spun into worsted yarns, the use of worsted goods has 
greatly increased. At the same time, though the theo- 
retic distinction between worsted and woolens still ex- 
ists, practically they are drawing closer and closer to- 
gether. As far as the raw wool is concerned, there is 
no difference between that used for carding and that 
used for combing. 

Fine wool is the only kind, except the very coarse 
carpet wool, for which there is any large and steady de- 
mand. The carpet wools, or rather the wool used in 
carpets, is often so coarse that it cannot be used in 
woolen and worsted yarns. The fibre frequently ap- 
proaches more nearly the hair of the goat, than the wool 
of the sheep. Of course, the backing of cloths can often 
be partly made of the finer sort of wool found on the 
surface of the ordinary carpets. 

Having considered some of the distinctions between 
wools, let us look at the different breeds Of sheep. 

As before intimated, the fine wool sheep are the 
Merinos. It may be said that they or their crosses are 
the only breeds bearing fine wool. Yet one hundred 
and twenty-five years ago, not one of these animals ex- 
isted outside of the boundaries of Spain, and even as late 
as the year 1800, Spain exported six million pounds of 
wool to England alone. The fleece of the Merino often 
brought as high as sixty-five cents to one dollar and forty 
cents per pound. The rest of the continent of Europe 
possessed numerous herds of sheep, carrying more or 
less coarse and inferior grades of wool. Probably the 
two most notable exceptions to the general worthless- 
ness of the stock were the Friesland and Rousillon. 
The first stood over three and a half feet in hight, and 
were especially prized for the large quantity of milk 



52 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

yielded by the ewes. The wool bordered on hair. The 
Rousillon were natives of France. Their fleece, though 
comparatively thin, was almost as fine as the Merino. 

The Merinos of Spain are said not to be indigenous 
to that country, but to have been imported by the 
Romans. In fact, an attempt has been made to trace 
the breed from the country around the ancient port of 
Dioscurias, on the Black Sea. * 

Whatever their origin, the sheep of Spain, in the last 
century, by fresh importations from Northern Italy and 
careful breeding, had reached a very high state of per- 
fection. In fact, though we have since more than 
trebled the weight of the fleece, it is doubtful whether 
we have improved its quality. 

Two reasons had up to 1765 kept the Merinos within 
the boundaries of the kingdom of Spain. The govern- 
ment zealously guarded what was rightly believed to 
be the nation's richest possession and most profitable 
monoply. Strict laws were made forbidding the expor- 
tation of the Merino. The more celebrated varieties, 
the Escurial, Gualeloupe, Paular, Infantado, Montareo, 
and lastly but not least, the far-famed Negretti, were 
especially protected. There was also a firm conviction 

* The reasons given for this view are interesting. Tzetes mentions 
the fame of the wool grown by the Coraxi, as spoken of by Hipponax, 
who lived about 540 B. C. This port is supposed to have had trade 
with Miletus. It could, therefore, have readily supplied to that island 
those sheep whose fleeces ranked first in the ancient world. The 
Greeks are thought to have introduced the sheep of Miletus into 
Southern Italy, for in the time of Pliny we find the wool of Tareutum 
in the highest repute. The writer at the same time calls them Greek 
sheep, and mentions that they have a short fine staple. According 
to Palladius, they were called Asiatic sheep ; meaning by Asia, 
Miletus and the adjoining ports of Asia Minor. Their fame is also 
spoken of by Horace and Martial. The record of their importation 
into Spain "is supplied by Columella, who states that the sheep of 
Tarentum were taken to Baetis. This assertion is endorsed by Cal- 
purnius. See Antiquum Textorum. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 53 

in the minds of all Europe that two things were abso- 
lutely necessary for the production of fine wool ; the 
climate of Spain, and the custom practiced by her peo- 
ple of driving the flocks long distances to and from their 
summer pastures. This latter belief, though all the 
sheep in Spain were by no means transmute or migra- 
tory, was shared by the Spaniards themselves. Laws, 
called the "Rules of La Marche," were passed setting 
aside large belts of country as roads over which the 
sheep could be driven, and every precaution was taken 
for their undisturbed passage. As the sheep were prin- 
cipally owned by the nobles, in whose interest all legis- 
lation was enacted, these "Rules of La Marche," often 
bore heavily on the agricultural interests of the com- 
mon people. 

In 1775 and 1778 the Elector of Saxony obtained per- 
mission to import from Spain one hundred rams and 
two hundred ewes. Judicious crossing of these and 
other importations with the native breeds, produced 
inside of thirty years a race of sheep which have even 
finer wool than the Spanish. They are known as the 
Saxony-Merinos. 

Between 1768 and 1788, the Merino was imported 
into most of the smaller states of Germany. One hun- 
dred sheep were brought to Wurtemburg in 1768. 
These, however, were partly from the Rousillon flocks 
of France. In 1783 and 1788, Spanish sheep were im- 
ported into the Duchy of Brunswick and the Margravate 
of Baden. 

Frederick the Great in 1786, obtained a number of 
sheep from Spain which were all lost, but Prussian 
breeders bought Saxo-Merinos. One of these importers, 
the enterprising and patriotic Count Von Magnis, on his 
estates in Silesia, laid the foundation of the Silesian 
breed. The present representatives of this breed bear 
finer fleeces than any other sheep in the world. 



54 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

To the perseverance of Daubenton, France owes the 
improvement of her sheep. In 1775 he imported a few 
Merinos from Spain. By carefully dividing these into 
seven herds, keeping some pure and mixing others with 
the native breeds, he demonstrated, in the face of his 
people's settled convictions to the contrary, that the 
native sheep of France could be so improved that they 
would ultimately produce very fine wool. In 1783 he 
had the satisfaction of seeing eight hundred and thirty- 
two pounds of wool, grown on the descendants of his im- 
ported sheep, manufactured into cloth. As a result of 
this practical proof, the French government imported 
from Spain to Rambouillet, the national farm, three 
hundred and sixty-seven rams and some ewes. Almost 
one hundred died from sheep-pox. The rest were placed 
under an agricultural board, whose attempts to increase 
the size of the carcass, and weight of the fleece, were 
crowned with success. In 1796 the average weight of 
the clip had increased to six pounds and nine ounces, 
while in 1801 the weight was nine pounds one ounce. 
The price during the same period rose from five frances 
($1.00) to twenty-seven frances ninety-five centimes 
($5.59) per fleece, proving that the manufacturers rapidly 
appreciated the value of the wool, although at first they 
had attempted to depreciate it, thinking their profits 
would be greater if the raw product continued to be im- 
ported. From the Rambouillet stock are descended the 
present breed of sheep known as the French Merino. 
Their large size and hearty constitution enables them to 
bear heavy fleeces, even when kept tmder rough condi- 
tions. They are consequently popular in Utah, Arizona 
and the extreme Northwest. 

Without describing in detail the importation of the 
Spanish Merino into the other countries of the conti- 
nent, we can state that before the beginning of the 
present century, a few of these animals could be found 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 55 

in every State in Europe. During the present century 
the careful experiments of the continental governments 
of Europe have given their several peoples breeds of 
sheep as nearly as may be adapted to their condition. 
Of late years, since mutton has become the chief object, 
especial attention has been bestowed upon feeding ex- 
periments, and the production of mutton sheep. This 
is particularly true of Germany and Austria. 

The only country where the Merino has not proved a 
success is England. In 1780 Lord Auckland induced 
the Marchioness del Campo de Arlange to present to the 
King, George III, five rams and thirty-five ewes of the 
Negretti variety. These were kept at Oaklands, a 
country seat of the Duke of York's, and considerable 
effort was made to induce the farmers to cross them with 
the native stock. But the Merino found in England 
rival breeds of sheep, which had been the result of 
years of care and thought. In the rest of Europe, as I 
have stated, the native sheep bore coarse wool and gave 
coarser mutton; in England, the wool by comparison 
was long and lustrous, the carcass large, the mutton 
juicy. The fine-wool stranger, in spite of the high 
price obtained for his fleece, was unprofitable. People 
refused to eat the comparatively coarse mutton. Then 
too, the eye of the farmer had become accustomed to 
his handsome, short-legged, fat, barrel-shaped sheep; 
while the Merinos were long-legged, and troubled with 
an excessive throatiness, which , gave, and still gives 
them, an awkward, ungainly appearance. The damp 
climate was another drawback. 

If the Merino failed to obtain an undisputed footing 
in the mother country, its success in Australia is one of 
the industrial wonders of our time. Imported by Cap- 
tain John McArthur in 1793, it was not until 1830 that 
people began to realize the advantages which cheap 
land, and an equable climate, give in the production of 



56 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

fine wool. In 1845, however, the exportation of wool 
from the colonies had increased to twenty-four million 
pounds (24,000,000); in 1880 it was three hundred and 
ninety millions (390,000,000); and, notwithstanding the 
loss from drought of ten millions of sheep in the first 
years of the present decade, the exportation last year 
(1889), * s estimated at five million five hundred pounds 
(5,000,500). Ninety-five per cent, of the wool of Aus- 
tralia is clipped from Merino sheep. On the other 
hand, half of the sheep of New Zealand are "Crosses," 
a term usually confined to a cross between a Spanish 
sheep and one of the English breeds. 

In South Africa, the Merino is practically the only 
blood which has been used to improve the coarse sheep. 
The wool now imported from these countries, while not 
so fine as the Australian, is superior to that grown in 
many of our western states and territories. 

The first introduction of the Merino into the United 
States was in 1793, when three fine rams were smuggled 
out of Spain and sent to William Forest of Boston. That 
gentleman killed and ate them, thanking the sender for 
his present of mutton. • It is safe to assume he never 
dined so expensively in his life, for the three amimals 
were probably worth at the time and place over four 
thousand dollars. The next attempt was more successful. 
In 1 801 the celebrated ram Dom Pedro was imported to 
Wilmington, Delaware. In the next six years he be- 
came the sire of many fine-wool flocks in that State and 
on the banks of the Hudson. Col. Humphreys Davis, 
of Connecticut, and the Hon. R. R. Livingston, of New 
York, also imported Merinos in the first years of the 
present century. In 1809 William Jarvis, Consul at 
Lisbon, bought at auction three thousand eight hundred 
and fifty animals, and shipped them to the United 
States. From this nucleus of about five thousand sheep 
are descended the fine-wool flocks of our country. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 57 

Previous to 1801, there were two kinds of sheep in 
North America. The animals to be found in the East- 
ern and Middle States, including some in Virginia, were 
the descendants of those brought over by the original 
English immigrants. They were probably taken from 
the poorer flocks of England. Thus we have an account 
of a few sheep brought with the first settlers to James- 
town, Virginia, in 1607. This is our earliest record. 
Owing to neglect, the sheep of the colonies were not 
materially different from those flocks with which the 
Merino had been crossed on the continent of Europe. 
Eighty years of care and patience have produced won- 
derful results. The stud flocks of Vermont, New York, 
Ohio and Pennsylvania produce the heaviest fleeces in 
the world. In the grease, or unwashed, they have been 
known to weigh over thirty pounds, while part of the 
clip contains as fine, if not finer wool, than their Span- 
ish ancestors. No praise is too high for the intelligent 
perseverance which has produced this result; and while 
we shall have occasion to criticise the standards of ex- 
cellence which our breeders have adopted, we must ad- 
mit that they have been marvelously successful along 
those lines of improvement which they have considered 
most desirable. The descendants of the cross between 
the sheep of the colonists, and the Merino, is spread 
over New York, Western Pennsylvania, Northern Vir- 
ginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and 
the other central Western States. 

There was another sheep on our continent, besides 
the descendants of those brought over by the Eng- 
lish immigrants. In the pine woods of the South 
Atlantic and Gulf Coast, in the Southwest, in Texas, 
Mexico, and Central America, is found, the American 
Scrub, the degenerate descendant of the early Spanish 
importations. They, therefore, probably contain Merino 
blood, though it is doubtful whether the Spanish govern- 



58 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

ment allowed any of the fine flocks to be sent to her col- 
onies. The Scrub lias in common with his Spanish an- 
cestors a wonderful hardiness of constitution. The fierce 
battles of the rams at the rutting season, the rough food 
and hard life, were causes producing a process of natural 
selection which eliminated all but the strongest and 
healthiest animals. The glory of the Spanish fleece 
has, however, totally departed. The Scrub rarely pro- 
duces more than two pounds of unwashed wool, which 
at the same time is so coarse that it is almost exclusively 
used in carpets. 

The cross of the Merino and the Scrub is called the 
Grade. The per cent, of Merino blood is designated by 
fractions. Thus the first cross is a one-half blood, the 
second cross a three-fourths blood, and the re-cross of a 
one-half grade ram with a Scrub ewe is a one-quarter 
blood. At present the Grade sheep is the most numer- 
ous variety in the United States. The pure Merino 
is not a profitable ranch animal. Their constitutions, 
though by no means delicate, are not equal to the 
rough treatment. In the language of the plains, they 
cannot * * rustle ' ' for a living. Experience seems to in- 
dicate that for the West, as long as we retain the present 
practice of herding sheep on sparse lands, the best ani- 
mal is a three-eighths blood. Except in the old South 
Atlantic and Gulf States and in Tennessee and Southern 
Kentucky, there are few absolutely unimproved Scrub 
sheep left. The herds of Southwestern Texas and New 
Mexico, however, have as a rule only a very small 
amount of Merino blood*; though even in these districts 
the character of the sheep is being rapidly improved. 
Table III. will give the reader an idea of the extent to 
which the amelioration of the native breeds, or more pro- 
perly the early Spanish importations, has been carried. 

While before the beginning of the present century, the 
people of the continent of Europe did little to better the 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 59 

character of their flocks, in England, from the time of 
Edward I., and even earlier, considerable attention was 
paid to raising sheep. All through mediaeval times 
English wool was in high repute on the continent, and 
was exported in considerable quantities to Belgium, 
Holland and France. Edward I. attempted to prohibit 
its exportation, in the hopes of stimulating native manu- 
facturing industry. This prohibitory policy, though 
somewhat modified, was continued until the reign of 
Elizabeth. In 1660 it was again renewed ; the last 
enactment remaining on the statute books until 1825. 
In the latter years of the eighteenth century, instead of 
being in a position to export wool, England began im- 
porting fine fleeces from Spain. 

In 1800 there were almost as many breeds of sheep in 
England as there are counties. The slowness of commu- 
nication between the North and South, together with the 
fixed nature of land tenure, which kept estates in one 
family for generations, and lent family pride to local 
prejudice, prevented the intermingling of the sheep of 
different counties, and gave to the breeds of each their 
distinctive characteristics. This distinctiveness in some 
respects they still retain, though each of the more cele- 
brated varieties is widely scattered over the earth. 

We must not suppose, however, that the English 
breeds have not been improved in the last ninety years. 
There is probably more difference between the Long- 
wool and the Down sheep of our day, and those of the 
eighteenth century, than there is between the original 
Merinos imported from Spain and their modern descend- 
ants. To appreciate the direction in which the im- 
provement of English sheep has taken place, let us 
glance at some of the most noted breeds. These may be 
divided into two classes; the Long- wool, and the Down, 
or medium wool sheep. The principal variety of the 
Long- wool sheep is the Leicester. In fact, the Cotswold, 



60 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

Lincoln and other breeds of this class are rather sub- 
varieties of the Leicester than distinctive breeds. The 
Leicester was brought to its present state of perfec- 
tion by Blakewell. The wool is ten inches long and 
very soft. The Lincolns, which were once a distinct 
breed but now contain much Leicester blood, have, as 
will be seen by the table (Table I.), somewhat heavier 
frames. The fleece is also heavier, and the wool coarser 
and more lustrous. The heaviest sheep are the Cots- 
wold, though their mutton is coarser in the grain. On 
comparing the relative value of these animals, it must be 
remembered that as a large and steady demand for long 
wool has ceased, they are valued principally for their 
mutton. 

The Down breeds, or middle sheep, more nearly satisfy 
the demand of modern markets. The principal varieties 
are the Southdown, the Oxford, the Hampshire and the 
Shropshire. The fineness of the fleece is in the order 
named, though there is little difference between the first 
three ; the Shropshire, however, is much coarser. The 
wool of the Downs can be compared to that of a quarter 
grade merino sheep, and is always marketable; while 
the mutton, though less in quantity, is of better quality 
than that of the Long- wool or heavy breeds. 

Table I. will enable the reader to compare the com- 
mercial value of these English sheep with the Mer- 
ino. In its examination, however, two additional cir- 
cumstances should be taken into consideration. The 
lamb of the English breed is hardier, and reaches ma- 
turity sooner than his fine-wool ed brother; but the 
full-grown Merino sheep, except for marshy lands, has a 
much better constitution. Two- thirds of the Grade 
sheep of the West, for instance, are kept under condi- 
tions which would in a short time kill any animal of 
English stock. The wool of the Merino grows close and 
thick, and becoming matted by the animal yolk or 



TABLE I 

SHOWING THE RELATIVE VALUE OF THE DIFFERENT BREE 



Unit. 



Cotswold. 


Lincoln. 


7- 


10% 


1.6591 


1-4594 


35-34 


35-35 


30-44 


25.66 


7- 


7- 


50. 


50- 


200. 


190. 


170. 


165. 


no. 


104.5 


93-5 


IO-75 



Leicest 



Length of Staple 

Fineness in -j^g of an inch 

Number of Serrations 

Per cent, of Elasticity 

Strain before breaking 

Weight of Fleece 

Live weight of Lambs at 3 months. 
Live weight of full-grown Rams . . 
Live weight of full-grown Ewes . . 
Rams, Dressed weight ...... 

Ewes, Dressed weight 



1 inch. 



Gr. 
lbs. 



1.5271 
1800. 

28.05 

23.70 
6 l / 2 

45- 
185. 
160. 
in. 

96. 



J. X1.JJJ_^JJ/ A. 

THE RELATIVE VALUE OF THE DIFFERENT BREEDS WHEN KEPT UNDER THK BEST 



CONDITIONS. 



of an inch, 
itions . . . 
ticity . . . 
aking . . . 



,ambs at 3 months, 
ill-grown Rams . . 
all-grown Ewes . . 
reight ...... 

'eight 



35-34 
3°-44 
7- 



Lincoln. 



1034 
1-4594 



35-35 

25.66 
7- 

5°- 
190. 
165. 
104.5 

10.75 



10. 

I-527I 
1800. 
28.05 
23.70 

ey 2 

45- 
185. 
160. 
in. 

96. 



Shropshire 
Down. 



5^ 



7- 

60. 
170. 
155- 

93-5 

78.275 



4U' 



■7185 



33-05 
30-43 
7- 

43- 
160. 
145- 



Hampshire,, ., _ 
nnvm houth Down 



6% 
43- 

155- 

143- 
82.5 
78.55 



22.95 
12.78 

40. 
150. 
140. 



28.70 
7-35 
11. 
30- 
105. 
95- 
52-5 
47-5 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 6l 

grease, forms an almost impervious mass ; while the long 
open fleece of the Leicester, or even that of the Shrop- 
shire and Southdown, is but a poor protection against 
cold winds and rain. Thus, though the English breeds 
fatten easily, and require, in spite of their size, only from 
ten to twenty per cent, more food to keep them in good 
condition, still the Merino can survive and bear some 
wool on the roughest and most scanty diet. 

The principal homes of the mutton sheep outside of 
the mother country are Canada and New Zealand. Most 
of the sheep of the former province contain Shropshire 
blood, and, as before mentioned, one-half of the sheep 
of New Zealand are cross-breeds. The distribution of 
the mutton breeds throughout the United States is 
shown in Table III. The sheep of southern New Eng- 
land, eastern New York and Pennsylvania, contain a 
great deal of Shropshire and Southdown blood. The 
improvement of the sheep of Virginia, and the slight 
improvement which has taken place in the South At- 
lantic States, have been almost exclusively with Shrop- 
shire rams. In the western part of the Middle Atlantic 
States and in the Central Western States, while the Me- 
rino is still the most numerous breed, the English sheep 
are rapidly gaining ground. This change has been es- 
pecially marked since the fall in the price of wool, fol- 
lowing the adoption of the tariff of 1883. Thus in Illi- 
nois the proportion of mutton sheep has increased from 
twenty to fifty per cent. The fall in the price of wool 
seems but to have accelerated this change in the charac- 
ter of the sheep. In 1870 there were few mutton sheep 
west of central Pennsylvania or New York, yet we see 
(Table III.) that in 1883 fifteen or twenty per cent, of the 
sheep of all the Central Western States contained more 
or less English blood, and in southern New England and 
eastern New York the change from fine wool to mutton 
sheep was already complete. West of the Mississippi, 



62 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

with the exception of the State of Iowa, there is little 
else than Grade-Merino, though the States of Washing- 
ton and Oregon have some Long-wool and Shropshire 
crosses. In the Southwest, in Utah, in Nevada, and 
even in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and adjacent states 
and territories, there are practically scarcely any sheep 
which have English blood. 

Let us now turn to the coarser wools grown on unim- 
proved sheep. The bulk of the coarse wool of com- 
merce is clipped from breeds which have been for cen- 
turies similar to what they are to-day, because they 
have been raised by the farming population of the 
Orient, who are the most unprogressive of all Caucasian 
people. Some breeds in the East are especially noted 
for the immense size to which the tail is developed. 
In parts of Asia Minor little two-wheeled carriages to 
support the appendage have to be fastened to the ani- 
mals, as the weight of the tail is too great to drag on 
the ground. This practice of fastening little carriages 
to the sheep is described by Herodotus as customary 
with these people in his day. Fat meat being more 
highly prized than lean, -a portion of the tail is consid- 
ered a great delicacy. 

Southern Russia exports immense quantities of carpet 
wool, grown on her Dronskoi breed of sheep. The 
wool is hairy, coarse, and about five inches long. The 
sheep seldom carry more than one and a half to one and 
three-fourths pounds of wool in the grease or dirt. The 
fleece only shrinks in scouring, however, from ten to 
sixteen per cent. The wool grown on the native sheep 
of India is also coarse. The highest grades of carpet 
wools come from Great Britain and South America. In 
the former country, the wool is grown on the Highland 
and Welsh Mountain breeds. The carpet wool of the 
latter country is imported mainly from the Province of 
Cordova, in the Argentine Republic. The majority of 



'WE WORLD, AND I HK ANNUA! PRODUCTION OF WOOL. 

Pounds of Wool "Scoured." 



Number of 



Pounds of Average per Pounds of 



Wool in the cent, ol Scoured 

Slice],. 



(,rea 



42,000,000 


224.000,000 


56 


3,500,000 


1 6,000,000 


20 


30,000,000 


60,000,000 


3° 


1 00,000,000 


400,000,000 


70 


7,000,000 


1 7,000,000 


60 


98,000,000 


550,000,000 


55 


20,000,000 


40,000,000 


12 


10,000,000 


1 4,000,000 


'5 


1 0,000,000 


1 4,000,000 


■5 


22,000,000 


97,000,000 


60 


6,000,000 


9,000,000 


16 


29,000,000 


133,000,000 


20 


22,000,000 


1 1 0,000,000 


3° 


1 9,000,000 


95,000,000 


30 


1 6,000,000 


88,000,000 


45 


1 5,000,000 


67,000,000 


30 


22,000,000 


88,000,000 


20 


75,000,000 


337,500,000 


16 


546,500,000 


2,359.5°°.°°° 





Number of She 



Wool. „ d = g II II 

I If I I 



§ 1 

§ 



100.000,000 
12,800,000 
42,000,000 

1 20,000.000 
6.Soo,ooo 

247,500,000 
35,200,000 
1 1 ,900,000 
1 1 ,900,000 
38,800,000 
7,560,000 

106,400,000 
77,000,000 
66,500.000 
48,400,000 
46.900.000 
70,400.000 

1 68,500.000 
:, 2 lS, 560,000 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 63 

the clip of South America is now above the grade of 
carpet- wool, and the fleeces from that country will pro- 
bably steadily improve, until little or no coarse wool is 
grown there. 

We have now discussed in a general way the character 
and distribution of the different breeds. If the reader 
will glance at Table II, he will see the relative amounts 
of wool produced by our own and foreign countries. 
The figures in the table do not pretend to be more than 
estimates. They serve simply to enable one to obtain 
a general view of the subject. It will be seen that 
Australia is by far the largest wool-growing country 
of the world. This is on account of the high average 
weight of the clip. The shrinkage of wool in scour- 
ing is due to the proportion of animal yolk or grease 
in the fleece, and to the presence of such foreign sub- 
stances as burrs, sand, and dirt. In such countries as 
the United States, where many breeds are used, the aver- 
age shrinkage which is about 51 per cent., tells us little 
about the clip from any section. On the other hand, 
in Australia, practically all the sheep being of pure Me- 
rino blood, there is little variation in the shrinkage. 
Owing to the wide difference in the amount of shrink- 
age and weight of the fleeces, the number of sheep in 
any country is a very poor indication of the amount of 
the product. Thus Russia has nearly twice as many 
sheep as the United States, yet the weight of our clip in 
the grease is more than double that of Russia. When, 
however, both these countries are compared on the basis 
of their production of scoured wool, we find them almost 
on a par. As a rule the wool of Merinos and their 
crosses have more yolk and shrink more than the carpet 
or combing wools. The large shrinkage of seventy-five 
per cent, which we find in the wool of South America 
is due in a great measure to the presence of burrs and 
dirt. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SHEEP-RAISING IN THE UNITED STATES. 

As far as the method of sheep raising and the care 
which is given to them is concerned, the sheep of the 
United States can be roughly divided into three kinds, 
viz. : the field, the ranging, and the roaming or Southern 
sheep. 

The first are those kept in fenced fields. This is the 
method employed in all States north of Mason and 
Dixon's line, and in the States north of Arkansas which 
border on the Mississippi River. The sheep in the east- 
ern parts of Kansas and Nebraska, in the more settled 
parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota, and in Northern 
Kentucky and Virginia, are also pastured in enclosed 
fields; while throughout the old South a few sheep are 
also kept in this way. The raising of what we have 
called field sheep is essentially an auxiliary industry. 
We seldom find a farmer exclusively engaged in the 
business. The total number of the animals kept in 
enclosed fields is about fifteen millions. 

The vast majority of the Western sheep are run on 
large ranches. One or two ranchmen will guard a band 
of fifteen hundred or two thousand. Of these sheep it 
may be said that the snow of winter freezes them, the 
heat of summer scorches them, rain and hail beat upon 
them, and they know no covering but the canopy of 
heaven, no bed but the open prairie. True, in the ex- 
treme North, in Washington, Northern Oregon, Mon- 
tana and North Dakota, the flocks are usually separated 
in winter into smaller bands and pastured near the 
corrals or open sheds ; while during extreme weather 

(64) 



OUR SHKEP AND THE TARIFF. 65 

they are driven under the corrals for shelter and feed. 
But even in these far Northern States the sheep are 
placed on the ranch at every opportunity, and allowed 
to ' ' rustle ' ' for a living. 

The roaming sheep are confined exclusively to the 
South, and particularly to the pine woods country along 
the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts. These are the 
sheep which receive absolutely no care, and which wan- 
der, unhindered, over the waste pine lands and through 
the " piney woods." For the heat of summer the trees 
provide them with shade ; and as for winter, the equable 
climate in which they live knows not the meaning of 
the word. The land is sometimes free, that is to say, 
owned by the State or the United States. In some 
States, such as Georgia, there are no more free lands, 
but there are still many wild or waste tracts, owned by 
persons who never see them, and on which roam the 
sheep and hogs of the small farmer. About April 1st 
the inhabitants of a county or section of country partici- 
pate in what is known as a " wool hunt." The sheep 
seldom stray very far, for they are not wild animals. 
The domestic blood of their Spanish ancestors still runs- 
in their veins. For three hundred years they have been 
neglected rather than abused. Thus, for the most part, 
they have only ceased to be tame in one sense — they do 
not turn to man. The English sparrow in our large 
cities is said to look on human beings very much as 
does the Scrub sheep of the South, without fear and 
without affection. Thus the wool hunt, which means 
catching the sheep, is not a very difficult undertaking. 
Being caught they are sheared, marked with the owner's 
brand, and turned loose for another twelve months. 
Bvery man is entitled to the wool of those sheep marked 
with his brand. The entire clip of the county is gener- 
ally brought to the county town, and there sold in one 
Jot to the highest bidder. 



66 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

Table III is designed to give a general view of the 
present condition of the industry. The varying num- 
bers of sheep in the several States from 1840 to 1890, 
shown in the diagram, are taken from the Government 
report on "Wool and the Manufacturers of Wool," 
issued in 1888. The column giving the present number 
of sheep in the different States and Territories, is based 
on the latest State and National reports, and the opinion 
of sheep raisers. The other information given in this 
Table, as also that in Table V, is based mainly on esti- 
mates made in reply to a circular containing some sixty 
questions, sent out by the author, and on personal 
letters from those actually engaged in the business. 
Their accuracy and value must be tested largely by the 
uniformity of the replies received from a State or Terri- 
tory. A general impression is apt to be much nearer 
the truth than an average of conflicting statements. 
In the West, where sheep raising is conducted on a large 
scale, there was little difference among my correspond- 
ents regarding the weight of the fleece, or as to the cost 
and price. In the East there was more variation in the 
replies, and the averages, consequently, are of less value. 

The character of the wool clip of our own country, 
the proportion of the mutton to the fine-wool sheep, 
and the per cent, of sheep improved, are things which 
must be known before an intelligent discussion of the 
needs of the industry can take place; yet they necessi- 
tate a statistical research which the Government alone 
is capable of performing. All that individuals can do 
is to gather the opinions of practical men. No greater 
benefit can be conferred upon an industry, than to 
allow a committee from those actually engaged in it to 
consult with the Chief of the Census concerning the 
character of the statistics they wish to have collected. 

The different facts shown by Table III. are brought 
out in other parts of this work. 




I — ; 

■ofe 

Wl — 

m o - 



CD 
X 

<-► 

»-t 

& 

^' 

r-f 
CO 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 67 

The bulk of the clip of the United States is shipped 
to Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, St. Louis, 
and San Francisco. These cities rank as wool centres 
in the order named. Whenever it is possible to obtain 
what he considers a good price, the grower sells on his 
farm or ranch to the buyers from the wool centres. In 
this way most of the wool of the Eastern States is sold 
on the farm. In the West, however, it is usually 
shipped Bast by the raiser. In New England the large 
majority of the wool is sold directly to local manufac- 
turers. The wool grown in the old Southern States is 
also mainly consumed by local mills. 

Except in the West the market for mutton is not con- 
fined to the large cities. In New England, New York 
and Pennsylvania more sheep are taken by the local 
markets than are shipped to the centres of population. 
The same is true of the States of the Ohio Valley. The 
sheep of Virginia and Maryland are sent to Baltimore 
and Philadelphia. The sheep of the South are also 
largely taken by local markets, except in southern South 
Carolina and in southern Mississippi, where they are 
shipped to the markets of Savannah and New Orleans 
respectively. East of the Mississippi the proportion of 
sheep killed for mutton now includes nearly all the 
wethers and about thirty to fifty per cent, of the ewes, a 
rate which, if no contagious disease prevails, keeps the 
numbers of the flock about stationary. In the far West 
the mortality among sheep is greater, and the desire 
being to increase the size of the flocks, few of the ewes 
are killed before they are five years old. Wool is the 
chief object, so the wethers are also kept as long as the 
ewes. Every spring in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, 
Arizona, Idaho, and Eastern Oregon, large numbers of 
these old sheep are brought up and driven into Kansas 
and Nebraska, where they are fattened on cheap corn, 
and in the winter and spring shipped by rail to St. 



68 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

Louis, Chicago and eastern markets. It is calculated by 
Mr. Prince, of Idaho, that one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand sheep on their way from Oregon to Nebraska, yearly 
pass over the trail which runs near Boise City. A few 
sheep are shipped all the way by rail, but the rates are 
very high. From Boise City to Chicago the rate amounts 
to about 87 cents per head, and from Colorado about 50 
cents. From Austin, Texas, and Helena, Montana, to 
Chicago, the rate is also 87 cents. These statements are 
the results of calculations based on the authority of the 
tariffs published for double-deck cars, as from points west 
of Kansas the rates per head are not given. Single-deck 
cars are forty per cent, less per car, or about twenty per 
cent, more per sheep. The railroads, it is charged, re- 
fuse to supply double-deck cars, or permit shippers to 
put in the decks. Therefore it has been found that the 
practice of driving sheep into Kansas and Nebraska is 
more profitable, though the long distance the animals 
have to travel, and the uncertainty of the climate and 
rainfall of the latter states, introduces a very large ele- 
ment of risk. 

When the wool reaches the market it comes in com- 
petition with foreign importations. It is argued that 
Americans and foreigners do not produce under similar 
circumstances, and that the American wool -grower 
labors under great disadvantages. These disadvantages 
are usually classed under two heads: our climate, and 
the dearness of our labor. Before dealing with climate 
and cost, and in order to give us a better idea of the 
present conditions under which sheep are raised, I desire 
to speak of some other drawbacks to the industry in our 
country which are not generally known. 

The first of these difficulties is the lack of uniform and 
standard grades of wool. The grading in the Philadel- 
phia market, for instance, is a territorial division rather 
than one based on any intrinsic distinctions. The wools 



States 



Maine . I 
New Ham 
Vermont 
Massachu! 
Rhode Isk 
Connectici 
New York 
New Jersc 
Pennsylva 
Delaware 
Maryland 
West Virg 
Ohio . . 
Indiana . 
Illinois . 
Michigan 
Wisconsir 
Miunesoti 
Iowa . . 
North am 
Missouri 
Montana 
Washingt 
Oregon . 
Kansas . 
Nebraska 
Wyoming 
Colorado 
Utah . . 
Nevada . 
Arizona 
New Mex 
Texas . . 
Californu 
Louisiam 
Mississip 
Alabama 
Georgia . 
Florida . 
South Ca 
North Ca 
Virginia 
Ken tuck] 
Tennesse 
Idaho . . 
Arkansas 



anotner mettiod. 01 grading wool, me wool irom tne 



TABLE III.— Part II. 



TATES AVD TERRITORIES. 



ie . . . 
Bampali 
noiit . . 
iai husetts 
Ie [gland 

,' 1 1 1 ■ i < l . . 



Ilgafl • • 

on mi 
leaota . 

ii and 5< 
ouii , . 
i. in. i . . 
hington 



on m- . 
hi. i . . . 

I"! ni.i . . 

iatana 
iama . . 



th Carolina 
th Carolina 

;ini.i . 

UK-W.V . 

nessee . . 




blood. 
Pull tilood. 
Southdown cross. 



Mixed. 

\ l.l 1. 

Mixed. 

Mixed. 



y 4 to full blood. 
y. blood. 



Shropshire. 
'.. blood. 



L 



irub. 

Scrub. 



Low grade Cross, 
lood. 

H blood. 
Scrub. 



s - 

5 g.g 



M 



!«.30 



a - 



the Ravages of Dog* 



a a * 

? an 



31 



°*« 






v. 

h 



• 5 
: I 



is.**) 

40,000 
20.000 



80,000 



21.250 

24,000 
50,000 



1 No sheep before this date. 



t Indicates that much of the wool is either a very low grade of clothing wool or carpet woo . 



■ 



vxx\~ uaocu un any UlIl'lllS] 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 69 

from Ohio, Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia, 
are first distinguished by the States in which they are 
grown. They are also divided into clothing and comb- 
ing wools. The latter, about one-fourth of the entire 
clip, has nothing in common with the long-combing 
wool of the Lincoln and Cotswold, but is the Delaine 
combing wool, grown, as before explained, on the De- 
laine merino sheep. The grades above medium clothing, 
or delaine wools, are known as fine, fine X, XX, etc. ; 
those below as coarse one-fourth blood. The majority 
of the wool from the States mentioned reaches the mar- 
ket in the dirt, or unwashed state. A larger proportion 
of the wool from this section, however, is washed than 
from any other part of the country. In Pennsylvania 
and Ohio the wool is sometimes washed on the sheep's 
back. This operation is usually performed by dipping 
the animal into a running stream — a barbarous practice, 
as nothing is more injurious to sheep than to become 
thoroughly wet; besides, the wool when it reaches the 
market is frequently known as unmerchantable, i. e,, 
poorly washed, and brings but little higher than un- 
washed wool. 

The wools west of the Mississippi river are usually 
called Territories. There is no Delaine, and now very 
little carpet wool from this section. The greater part is 
medium clothing. The wool from each State and Ter- 
ritory is graded as fine, fine X, XX, and above; fine, med- 
ium, common, and coarse. The ram's wool in which 
there is a large quantity of dirt and grease is known by 
the further appellation of heavy. The proportion of the 
fleeces from the different States which would be graded 
above and below medium, is given in Table III. There 
are no statistics on the subject, and the figures must not 
be regarded as more than the expression of opinions of 
experienced dealers and breeders. In Boston there is 
another method of grading wool. The wool from the 



7<D OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

Middle States, Ohio and Michigan, is graded as XX 
Picklock, XX, X, No. i, No. 2, and Common. X and 
above is supposed to mean wool of full Merino blood. 
No. 1 denotes three-fourths Merino; No. 2, half Merino; 
and coarse, one-fourth blood and below. The clip of 
California is sold largely in Boston. As the sheep in 
that State and Texas are usually shorn twice a year, the 
clips are known by the further designation of Fall and 
Spring. The wool from California, especially that from 
the southern counties, is apt to contain a good many 
burrs. When not in this condition it is spoken of as 
"free." 

In Chicago the grades are similar to those in the Phil- 
adelphia markets, except that there are no quotations 
for wool grown east of Indiana. On the other hand, the 
wool from the States immediately west and south of 
Chicago, is sent exclusively to that city. 

This territorial division of wools makes anything ap- 
proaching standard grades an impossibility. The wool 
from Colorado, for instance, is twenty per cent, better 
to-day than a few years ago. The change in Utah has 
been even more marked. Arguments from a compari- 
son of price-lists are thus rendered useless. The repu- 
tation which a State or Territory has had in the past 
affects the value of the wool, and discourages attempts 
to improve the fleece. In Texas, if one ranchman im- 
proves the character of his sheep, he will obtain little 
more than the price received by his neighbors, though 
the buyer will sell the wool at an advance to the manu- 
facturers. But failure to reward an attempt to improve 
the fleece is not always the fault of the middle-men. 
Even the commission merchant cannot sell a consign- 
ment of wool from Texas as high as a consignment from 
Pennsylvania or Ohio, though there should be no differ- 
ence in the quality, character or condition of the fleeces. 
Thus the old proverb of giving a dog a bad name holds 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 7 1 

good in the wool trade. The more ignorant the popula- 
tion, and the smaller the scale on which sheep-raising is 
carried on, the more unequal is the competition between 
breeder and dealer. In the South, for instance, ask one 
who still raises sheep in spite of the ravages of curs and 
blacks, why he does not try to improve the character of 
the wool, and he will probably point to an instance 
where such an attempt was made, and the single buyer, 
who passes yearly through the country purchasing for 
local mills, refused to pay more for the clip. Even when 
the clip is sold at auction in the county town, the farm- 
ers, being ignorant of the value of their product, do not 
always drive a good bargain. 

The wool of all ranch sheep varies yearly in the 
strength and elasticity of the fibre, in the proportion of 
sand and dirt with which it is mixed, and in the num- 
ber of kemps or dead hairs it contains. This is due to 
variations in the climate from year to year. Change in 
the food, provided the sheep has sufficient nourishment, 
contrary to the common impression, will have little or 
no effect on the quantity or quality of the wool. It has 
been contended that the fact that Australian sheep were 
fed on natural grasses all the year round, lent an even- 
ness to the fibre which could not be obtained where the 
animals were placed on dry fodder during the winter 
months. But the careful experiments of Win. McMur- 
trie, Ph. D., given in his report on "Wool and other 
Animal Fibre" published by our Government (1886), 
indicate that there is no difference in respect to the 
evenness of the fibre, between the Australian and well- 
fed Vermont Merino. On the other hand, the slightest 
diminution in the quantity of nutriment, when the ani- 
mal has had barely sufficient to keep him in good con- 
dition, immediately affects the character of the fleece. 
If the winter is short and mild, and if the spring rains 
make the summer grasses on the prairie thicker than 



72 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

usuai, the wool will be twenty per cent, above the aver- 
age, the fibre comparatively strong, and the fleece free 
from dirt. On the other hand, a hard winter and a dry, 
hot summer will render the fibre, however fine, useless 
for any purpose where strength is required. To illus- 
trate the effect of climate. When the snow is deep, the 
half-starved animals find with difficulty the white sage 
bush which forms their main, and in many cases their 
sole winter diet. The rate of the fibre's growth is 
greatly lessened, while the small portion grown is very 
weak, and at the same time, that which was grown the 
previous summer and fall, when the animal was better 
fed, is also affected. The whole fleece is thus filled 
with kemp. If the summer is hot and dry, the quan- 
tity of the finely powdered sand, which weights the 
fleece and cuts the wool, is greatly increased. 

The weakness of the wool from the Territories is not 
confined to years when the winter has been severe or the 
summer dry. West of the ninety-ninth parallel, except 
possibly in Western Oregon and parts of Montana and 
California, sheep in the best of years never receive suffic- 
ient nourishment for twelve months together. The way 
in which sheep are kept in Utah, and the effect of the 
insufficient nourishment on the fibre, is well brought 
out in the following, taken from a letter written by Mr. 
Charles Crane, President of the Utah Wool Growers' 
iVssociation, and the largest owner in that Territory : 

"The sheep when shorn in June have usually an 
abundance of nutrition, feed, grasses, etc. (This must 
be taken from a western ranchman's standpoint.) Hot 
days, and the sheep being fat, makes the oil or yolk 
come to the surface of the wool. This continues until 
the fall, when the feed is dry and the sheep ^commence 
to get poor. Cold comes on, and no shelter is afforded 
them. Snow, rain, sleet, etc., pour down on them. The 
sheep get poorer, the wool stops growing, and grows but 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. J$ 

little during the whole winter. But as soon as green 
grass starts up in the spring, up comes the wool, with 
the nice oil in it to give it life. But the old wool (*". e. 
that which has grown the previous summer), is harsh, 
brittle, dry and comparatively rotten. Thus when 
shorn, half of the wool has yolk, while the other half 
has none. Result — a defective staple, weak fibre, etc." 

From the above it will be seen that many western 
fleeces, no matter how fine they may be, could never, 
unless the sheep receive more care than they do, equal 
the clips of Australia. 

The difference in the character of the clip of any 
State from year to year, renders the necessity for 
standard grades more imperative than if the quality of 
the wool was uniform. The manufacturer, not know- 
ing how much scoured wool he is buying, taking each 
year the clip of a different ranch, and having to pur- 
chase with the wool he wants a great deal of wool 
which he does not need, naturally sees the price is low 
enough to protect him. On the other hand, the Austra- 
lian wools have been fine for a number of years. The 
industry is conducted on such a large scale, that the 
clip of a station or run is often well known in the 
London market. Thus the flocks of Sir Samuel Wil- 
son, or the Brcildown, Mount Bute, Victoria clips, are 
famous the world over. In England, the agents of 
manufacturers often buy by the name of the breed or 
owner, without looking at a sample of the wool. The 
same thing is true of English wools in this country. 
One county in England has produced the same wool for 
years. When the manufacturer buys, he knows as well 
as any sample could tell him, the character of the pro- 
duct. 

To add to the disadvantage under which American 
wools labor from the lack of standard grades, because of 
the great variations in the fleeces from year to year, the 



74 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

wool growers make no attempt to sort the wool. In 
Southern Africa and Australia the wools are often sorted 
before shipment. There are always several grades of 
w r ool in one fleece. The finest grade is cut from the 
sides, back and shoulders of the animal ; another grade 
grows on the haunches and breast; a third comes from 
the belly. Of course, there may be many sub-divisions 
of the above classification. After sorting, the wool is 
shipped in sacks or bales, weighing from two hundred 
to a thousand pounds. Those from Australia are from 
six to seven hundred pounds in weight, those from 
Montevideo and other countries of the Rio Plata will 
run as high as one thousand pounds. The wool from 
the Cape, having a greater per cent, of yolk, is heavier 
than the Australian, but the bales are smaller. The 
average weight last year was between three and four 
hundred pounds. Bales from the Hast are very irreg- 
ular in size, and in the number of pounds of wool. 
English wool is imported in sacks which will average 
two hundred and forty pounds a piece. American wool, 
on the other hand, comes into the market in separate 
fleeces. Each fleece is rolled into a bundle and tied 
by a heavy twine. Where foreign wool is imported in 
separate fleeces, a portion of the animal's wool is used 
as a cord, and the fleeces themselves are always placed 
in sacks. Thus the buyer does not have to pay for 
twine at its weight in wool. Then too, the fleece is 
never stuffed, as is almost the invariable practice in this 
country. Stuffing consists in rolling up in the fleece 
locks and tags, or broken pieces of wool, together with 
the soiled buttocks and the fibbs, or short coarse locks 
from the legs and face. Not infrequently pieces of dirt 
shaken from the fleeces in clipping are added. The 
wool growers make a great mistake in thus weighting 
their wool. Anything which renders the buyer uncer- 
tain as to the value of what he is purchasing, not only 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 75 

reacts on the selling price, bnt handicaps the grower in 
his struggle with foreign competition. Many recognize 
this. Some have tried to stop the practice, others have 
attempted to sort their fleeces, but they have met with 
little success. The dealers refused to pay more for 
sorted wools. Thus, the few who have tried it, found 
sorting did not pay. As for stuffing, not to stuff your 
wool would be like a manufacturer trying to pay his 
hands twenty per cent, higher than his rivals: unless 
you have united action on the part of the manufacturers, 
it cannot be done. Competition, that supposed panacea 
for all human ills, makes it impossible for a man to be 
more honest than his neighbor. A bad practice, like 
bad money, drives out the good. Wool growing is no 
exception to this rule. To induce the individual wool 
grower to stop stuffing, one would have to make such a 
course more profitable. As a matter of fact, it has been 
found that for one to make a change, results in a loss to 
him as an individual; for again, as in the case of im- 
proved wool, the dealer or manufacturer refuses to 
reward his efforts. 

This exemplifies a truth uniformly overlooked by the 
advocates of ' ' laissez faire. ' ' Competition, it is asserted, 
causing every one to seek his own interest, will natur- 
ally produce the least expensive and therefore the best 
methods of production. Unfortunately, as in the case 
of stuffing, often an improvement which might be better 
for all, if all undertook it, would be the ruin of one who 
singly attempted it. 

After the fleeces reach the market they are sorted. 
This may, at first glance, seem to make the grades of 
wool as quoted more stable than they might appear from 
the foregoing discussion. The sorter has in his mind 
what XX Ohio, or one-half blood Ohio, should be like; 
and when a fleece from that State is brought to him, he 
sorts the wool according to his own idea, regardless of 



j6 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

the animal from which the wool is clipped. Thus a 
single fleece may pass into two or more grades. This 
explains what sometimes puzzles the Western ranchman. 
He has a flock of sheep which he knows to be one-half 
blood or medium. He ships the clip to market, and it 
is graded as one-quarter coarse and two-thirds fine. 
Now, of course, this would greatly lessen the force of 
some of my remarks on the variations in the condition 
of the fleece, if it were not customary for brokers and 
commission merchants to change the fineness of a par- 
ticular grade from year to year. Thus "fine X and 
above ' ' is said to be graded twenty per cent, higher in 
Philadelphia this winter (1890) than last year. Dealing 
in ' ' futures ' ' is therefore an impossibility. If I con- 
tract to deliver to " A " on the first of June ten thousand 
pounds of fine X Ohio, and when the date comes I should 
desire to avoid my bargain, I can practically offer him 
any wool I choose. He may say that the fleece is not 
what he ordered. I may reply, it is what I call fine X. 
Or, if Ire desires to withdraw, he can refuse to take the 
wool which I send him, no matter how fine it may be. 
Hence there never has .been a contract, u fine woo 1 " 
being a term varying with every year, in every market, 
and almost with every dealer. With us then there is an 
imperative necessity for standard grades. These grades 
must necessarily be of scoured wool. The difference in 
the shrinkage, and the variations from year to year of 
even fleeces from the same ranches, render anything like 
standard grades of wool in the dirt impossible. 

A wool exchange has been suggested as a means 
whereby standard grades could be established. Its 
practicability the author does not feel himself in a posi- 
tion to discuss, but every scheme whose object is to 
brine the wool grower nearer the manufacturer and 
which enables the former to appreciate the wants of the 
latter should be carefully considered. Theoretically 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. J J 

there is much to be said in favor of such a project. The 
present competition between the grower and the middle- 
man is a very unequal one. The former, shut up on his 
lonely ranch, knows little of the needs of the market or 
the prospect of next year's crop outside of his own 
State. His sole means of judging of the fairness of the 
price bid for wool is the price he has received in pre- 
vious years. He knows not when to accept, nor when 
to refuse an offer. A price one cent higher than in 
former years may be low, or, on the other hand, a price 
one cent lower may be high; yet in all probability he 
will accept the first and refuse the last. The ranchmen 
now lose all the little advantages of trade which spring 
from the knowledge of future demand. The cotton ex- 
change has obviated these difficulties in that industry. 
A wool exchange, both on account of the smallness and 
varied nature of the product, will be a much more diffi- 
cult undertaking ; yet, with our genius for organization, 
there seems to be little reason why it could not be ac- 
complished. However, whether a wool exchange, sim- 
ilar to our cotton exchange, will be beneficial or not, 
certain it is that the wool growers need a strong, intelli- 
gent National Association, which will, by united effort, 
render impossible all such practices as stuffing. 

The other drawbacks to the success of the industry in 
America, touch more nearly the actual raising of the 
sheep themselves. One of these is the ignorance of the 
average farmer. I do not inclue ranchmen in the term. 
It seems to be the universal testimony, that those who 
are at present in the business, for the most part, under- 
stand it. ' This could not have been said a few years 
ago. Of late, the inexperienced ranchmen have lost 
capital, and gained experience. At the same time, I 
do not wish to imply that the American farmer of 
the Middle and New England States is not far mere 
intelligent than the peasants of Europe, who seem to 



78 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

understand the raising of sheep; but simply that sixty 
per cent, of our farmers do not know how to keep these 
animals. To a query addressed to persons in each 
State, who undoubtedly understand the business, asking 
whether the fanners in that State used proper care, the 
answers received stated that forty, fifty, or in Western 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and parts of New York, sixty per 
cent, take good care of their stock; the rest are slovenly. 
In New Jersey and Southern New England a man who 
can raise sheep is regarded as having a peculiar gift; 
just as before the people of Illinois learned how to raise 
hogs, the neighbors would say of one who was success- 
ful, "So-and-so has a knack of raising hogs." In New 
England, in 1840 and 1850, people knew how to care 
for sheep. But as the price of land rose and the price 
of wool fell, raising sheep for wool became unprofitable. 
Then would have been the time to introduce the mutton 
breeds. But there were no Federal or State stock farms 
to sell, at low cost, rams suited to the condition of the 
people. The fine-wool animal was killed off, and no 
breed arose to take his place. It is only within the last 
ten or twelve years that- there has been an effort to in- 
troduce the Shropshire, Southdown, and other English 
rams. What took place in Southern New England, 
Eastern New York, New Jersey and Eastern Pennsyl- 
vania, thirty-five to forty years ago, is taking place to- 
day in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
and Michigan. Now we have Agricultural Experiment 
Stations in all of these States. The wool growers ask 
Congress for higher duties, but not a word is said, nor 
appropriation asked, to conduct stock farms or to carry 
on experiments in breeding. Small farmers cannot pay 
high prices for their rams, and good Cotswold or Shrop- 
shire rams command anywhere from one hundred to five 
hundred dollars. The number of mutton sheep in the 
country has largely increased, but they are not, even in 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 79 

New York, Indiana and Illinois, dispersed among small 
growers as they should be. These, seeing 110 immediate 
profit in fine wool, are rapidly killing off their sheep. 
Thus, the possibility of establishing a great industry, 
and of adding to the food supply of the nation, is being 
lost, not because raising sheep for mutton is unprofit- 
able, but because we are bound down to an a priori 
theory, which seems to exclude all breeding experiments 
within the province of government. 

It may be objected that without the aid of government 
we have succeeded in producing remarkably fine horses 
and the finest hogs in the world. This is true, and an 
explanation of the reasons why we have succeeded in 
these two cases, while we have partly failed in the case 
of sheep, will show the necessity for the State providing 
fine rams at a moderate cost. Take the case of horses. 
In the first place, a good horse is easily selected by 
those who are accustomed to them. Few farmers, it is 
true, own their own stallions. But a farmer who owns 
one, seldom has a sufficient number of mares to keep 
the animal exclusively for his own use. Thus he will 
make a business of renting him to his neighbors. 
What would our race of horses be to-day if every farmer 
had to own his own stallion ? But we seldom find one 
who can afford to own a good ram, who has not sufficient 
use for him in his own flock. On the other hand, where 
on account of the rapidity of multiplication the male is 
cheap, as in the case of the hog, the intelligence of our 
farmers has been sufficient to produce wonderful results. 
Every farmer who raises pigs can afford to possess the 
best boars. We now have marvellous uniformity in 
kind, and excellence in quality. A picture of one pig in 
the Chicago market would do for any other. The ram, 
however, is not only expensive, but difficult to select. 
One who knows little of the wool market cannot from 
the appearance of the animal, as in the case of horses 



80 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

and pigs, or even by weighing the fleece, select the best 
animal. Thus in order to diffuse among small farmers 
a breed of sheep especially fitted for the climatic and 
economic conditions of the country, two things appear 
to be necessary: first, long-continued and patient ex- 
periments, involving a considerable outlay of time and 
money ; second, willingness to sell rams at a very low 
cost. This combination is never found outside the gov- 
ernment Experiment Stations, or government Stock 
Farms. 

Concerning the South, and the interest in that section 
of our country, I shall have more to say later. Those 
who raise sheep, if allowing them to roam in the pine 
woods can be called raising, thoroughly understand the 
animal with which they deal. Intelligent Northerners 
who have gone South to teach the natives how to raise 
sheep, have uniformly failed, not only to instruct, but to 
succeed themselves. But, though the Southerner under- 
stands his sheep as they are, he has not the remotest 
idea how to improve either the mutton or the wool. 
Like the Armenian or Persian, he can handle profitably 
the sheep which his father and grandfather raised before 
him; but give him an animal which requires a different 
treatment, and he will invariably fail. The sheep of 
Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama are absolutely 
unimproved, and in spite of prohibitory tariffs, they will 
so remain until immigration or education changes the 
character of the inhabitants. 

To turn to another drawback. The chief 'glory of a 
Vermont ram is the unparalleled weight of his fleece. 
As before mentioned, fleeces have been clipped which 
weighed over thirty pounds. This increase of weight is 
not entirely due to the increase in the amount of wool. 
Prizes at State Fairs and by Breeders' Association have 
been uniformly given for the heaviest clip. Weight 
then, not the fineness or evenness of the fleece, has been 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 8 1 

the principal object. Yolk bears down the scales as well 
as wool. Thus the proportion of this animal grease has 
been so increased that the shrinkage of the heavier 
fleeces is sometimes over seventy per cent. The prizes, 
if ever given solely for weight, should be distributed on 
a scoured and not an unwashed basis. A certain amount 
of yolk is indispensable, but too much only serves to 
chill the animal in cold weather. Weight, however, 
should not be the only object. The increase in the 
amount of wool is certainly desirable, but to sacrifice 
everything to that end is to erect a false standard. 

The success of wrinkly Merinos is a proof of how with 
us the scales preponderate over all other considerations. 
The object in Australia has been to put upon the market 
a fleece, every part of which shall be as near as may be 
similar in length and in fineness to every other part. 
Sheep growing fibres side by side which differ in length, 
diameter and strength, are not used for breeding pur- 
poses. The evenness of the fibre from those colonies 
adds greatly to the value of the clip. On the other 
hand, in our desire for weight, we have produced breeds 
whose wrinkly skin causes the wool to lie in folds upon 
the animal's back, neck, and throat. The fibre which 
grows between the folds is both finer and more elastic 
than that which comes from the top of the wrinkles. I 
make this assertion on the authority of Mr. McMurtrie. 
He found the fibres taken from between the folds meas- 
ured .0008385 of an inch in diameter, while those from 
the tops of the wrinkles measured .0009751 of an inch. 
The fibres from the tops were also longer in staple. 
And here it may be remarked that the fineness of the 
fibres growing between the folds would seem to indicate 
that the custom practiced by the Romans, of covering 
their sheep, in order to increase the softness and fineness 
of the wool, was not so useless as is generally supposed. 

It is also asserted that in making the weight of the 
6 



82 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

wool practically our only object, we have paid too little 
regard to the strength of the animal's constitution. Cer- 
tain it is that after eighty years of experience, we have 
failed to produce a fine- wool sheep as strong as our native 
scrub. It is fair to state, however, that the sheep of our 
Middle and Eastern States are peculiarly free from all 
kinds of contagious diseases. Grub in the head and 
paper skin carry off some of the lambs, while among 
full-grown sheep, indigestion, liver complaint, and in 
damp locations foot rot, are the most serious disorders. 
Nevertheless, the mortality is not large. In Indiana, for 
example, only 36,764 sheep died in 1889, out of a total 
of 950,000, showing that the State was free from con- 
tagious disease. Ohio, out of a sheep population of 
3,500,000, lost 178,873. In the South, the sheep are 
very hea thy, though loss is sometimes occasioned by 
diarrhoea, brought on by eating the flowers of the 
partridge pea. 

In all States west of the Mississippi River, however, 
and especially in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, the 
scab is one of the ranchman's worst enemies. Like 
mange in horses and dogs, or the itch in men, the scab 
is a cutaneous disease. It is propagated by a minute 
insect, the acarus. The sheep rub, bite and tear the 
affected parts. The disease is always accompanied by 
great loss in the quantity and quality of the wool, and 
if not attended to, will shortly result in the animal's 
death. It first appeared in Texas just before the break- 
ing out of the late war. Though not directly contag- 
ious, scabby sheep leave the acari on all objects with 
which they come in contact. These animalculae remain 
alive for a long time, ready to fasten themselves on other 
sheep. A pasture which has lately been inhabited by 
animals troubled with the scab, is therefore, unfit to use. 

The scab is kept in check in the West by dipping the 
animals in a solution of turpentine immediately after 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 83 

shearing. The disease has been greatly increased on 
our Western ranches by the low state of the sheep's 
vitality, owing to exposure and poor feeding. In fact, 
scab is often resisted by sheep in a perfectly sound con- 
dition, and no better proof could be given of poor 
nourishment than the presence of that disease. Our 
State and National Governments have done little to 
help the grower in his efforts to eradicate this serious 
obstacle to successful wool growing. Sheep affected 
with the malady are not always separated from the rest 
of the herd, and whole bands of more or less scabby 
sheep, distributing as they go , the fatal parasite, are 
allowed to be driven across lands to which other flocks 
have access. In Australia, on the other hand, the 
strictest regulations are enforced. All sheep shipped 
into the country are quarantined and clipped, while 
sheep on the runs suffering from this or any other con- 
tagious disease, must be immediately killed. By such 
means, except in western Australia, all contagious dis- 
eases have been stamped out of those colonies, while 
with us the trouble is only temporarily kept in check by 
the application of "dips." 

The next, and we believe hitherto the greatest draw- 
back to the success of the industry in the West, are the 
Scrubs themselves. The fact that we have what we 
may call a native American breed of sheep, thoroughly 
acclimated, has been looked upon as one of our national 
blessings. None can deny that advantages have resulted 
from finding in the South and West a hardy race of 
animals. But aside from their constitution, the Scrubs 
are wretched beasts. In the first place, they are not fit to 
eat. As a consequence, the people who raise them have 
as a rule a positive distaste for mutton. The pound and 
a half of wool which they bear, while it might be 
coarser, is very far from fine. Where the scrub has been, 
or is, there the industry is on the wane or in a stationary 



84 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

condition. Those States which never saw the Scrub, but 
only his improved descendant, are to-day increasing 
their flocks. Thus the wool from New Mexico, southern 
and even northern and central Texas, does not equal that 
of Montana, either in fineness or weight of fleece. Yet 
ten years ago there was scarcely a pound of wool grown 
in the latter state. Only the best Grade animals have 
been imported, and the industry has made rapid strides, 
in spite of cold, and the expense attendant on winter 
feeding. The number of sheep in Mexico and Texas, 
on the other hand, has either remained stationary or 
decreased. Scrub sheep were not found in Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, or the Dakotas, and to-day 
the character of the clip of all these states is excellent. 
If we had had no sheep in the country, or rather no Scrub 
sheep, it would have taken at first somewhat longer for 
the industry to have spread over the West; yet the history 
of the wonderful increase of the sheep in Australia, 
where both ewes and rams were imported, shows that 
success of the industry depends upon favorable con- 
ditions, not native breeds. As for the advantages of 
the strong constitution possessed by the Scrub, it is a 
question if flocks of Merinos imported into the country 
and allowed to increase would not be as strong as 
crosses of indigenous and hardy ewes with imported 
and unacclimated rams. But, even if our supposed 
importation of Merinos could not have withstood the 
effects of exposure in such a climate as that of Colorado 
and Wyoming, or the wretched living of Utah and 
Arizona, the fact would not have been an unmixed 
evil. It might, for instance, have confined our endeav- 
ors to raise large flocks of sheep to those parts of the 
country where climate and pasturage were suitable. 
The u hustling" qualities of the Scrub have led us to 
waste our energies in trying to herd these animals on 
every tract of cheap land from the borders of Canada to 
the Rio Grande. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 85 

The Scrub is the greatest enemy to the industry in 
the West, but the Bast and the South have a far worse 
foe. As will be seen later, part of Tennessee and 
South Kentucky is an ideal sheep country. Equable 
climate, cheap, good land, and nearness to the markets, 
combine to make this section the home of the fine-wool 
industry. Yet there is no part of the United States 
where sheep are fewer or more worthless. The causes 
which make that part of our country, where physical 
conditions are most favorable for raising sheep, one of the 
worst in which the industry can be undertaken, are ex- 
clusively social. The old South is kept from being the 
greatest wool and mutton producing section of the 
United States; not because the climate is severe or the 
land poor, for both are eminently favorable, but because 
of ignorance, indolence, darkeys and dogs. The cur is 
the bane of sheep-raising in the South, but the cur is the 
result of the character of the people. We must not sup- 
pose, however, that this dog nuisance is confined to the 
South. In the Eastern States, in New England, and the 
old West, large numbers of sheep are annually killed by 
the canine. At the same time there is no better criterion 
of the intelligence of the agricultural population of a 
State, than the proportion of the sheep which are annu- 
ally sacrificed on the altar of a desire to keep a number 
of worthless curs. A population which will disregard 
their material prosperity for the sake of an occasional 
hunt, is not many steps removed from barbarism. Is it 
any wonder that amongst the most illiterate portion of 
our population, the desire for the possession of a large 
number of nondescript dogs is developed to the highest 
degree ? Every darkey, and the majority of the white 
trash of Tennessee, the Gulf and South Atlantic States, 
keep from one to six hounds — long, lean, lank, hungry 
beasts. The dog must live, and he certainly can never 
do so off the "crumbs which fall from his master's 



86 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

table." Ergo, he supplements his own scanty meal 
by a taste of mutton. One-fourth of the sheep of 
Florida, Georgia and Alabama disappear annually to 
satisfy the appetite of the cur and his hardly less de- 
structive master. This does not only mean that the 
cost of raising sheep is increased ; it makes sheep- 
raising, except in a desultory half-hearted way, an im- 
possibility, and renders the increase and improvement of 
the flocks an impracticable dream. Even to have three 
per cent, of the sheep of the State killed, as in Massachu- 
setts, implies a great deal more than one might suppose. 
It denotes that sheep have to be more or less watched 
or strong fences provided. The barrier that will keep 
a sheep in, will by no means keep a dog out. Thus 
the liability of flocks to be annoyed by dogs, even if 
none are killed, will increase the cost of raising sheep 
from ten to fifty per cent. The effect on the farmer is 
worse than the increase in the expense. When one, 
after years of painstaking, collects a flock of nice Meri- 
nos or Southdowns, to have half of them mangled by 
dogs, and the rest ruined as the result of fright, is some- 
thing which damages will never repay. The farmer 
may start to keep sheep again, but two visitations end 
all idea of sheep raising. 

The success of those who are not troubled with the 
cur, is an indication of the magnitude of the evil. One 
of the most energetic sheep-raisers south of the Ohio is 
Mr. Polk Prince, of Guthrie, Kentucky. He gives one 
dollar to his men for every dog they kill. The plan 
works admirably. He is seldom troubled with dogs, 
and as his sheep cost but little to raise, he naturally 
finds the business exceedingly profitable. The raising 
of wool and mutton is successfully carried on in some 
counties of Southwestern Virginia, because from this 
section of the State the negro and his dog have emi- 
grated. Craig county, for example, has only a score of 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 87 

negroes and practically no dogs. As a result, sheep pay 
better than any other stock. 

We must not blame everything, however, on the 
negro. The dogs and the blacks are certainly a most 
formidable evil, but if the white population wished to 
eliminate the former, they could easily do so. Con- 
trolling the legislatures of -the States, they could pass 
laws taxing the cur out of existence. But unfortunately 
it is not the darkey alone who loves to possess a large 
number of curs. Many of the poorer sort of whites would 
rather kill all the sheep in the United States than lose 
their tobacco, their whiskey and their hunt. When we 
realize that the comparatively intelligent farmers of the 
Northern States seem to be utterly incapable of uniting 
in any determined effort to eradicate the evil, one almost 
feels that he cannot blame the people of the South for 
their negligence, when he remembers that their an- 
cestors were cursed b^ social conditions which induced 
habits of indolence, and that they themselves are sur- 
rounded by an ignorant, inferior race, struggling for 
political supremacy; conditions as unfavorable to social 
progress as can well be imagined. We cannot, there- 
fore, be surprised if the dog question is the one subject 
on which the whites and blacks are united, the former 
falling to the intelligence of the latter. Industries may 
languish, land lie idle, but the cur must remain. 
Where the evil resulting from his presence is most form- 
idable, as in Florida, there we find the least chance for 
any remedial legislation. He will be a brave legislator 
who will propose a dog law, and a rapid return to private 
life will be the sure reward of his temerity. The follow- 
ing extract from a letter written by one holding an 
official position in Florida, well illustrates the temper 
of the people: 

' ' As long as there are coons (four and two-legged), 
deer, bears, possums, rabbits and partridges in Florida, 



88 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

just so long the sheep will be kept down, that worthless 
dogs, and equally worthless darkeys, may exist. Laws 
are passed to protect partridges and mockers. This is 
all right, but the man who would hint that a dog law 
could be passed would be a fit subject for Barnum. 
Dozens of men in Florida live by hunting and fishing. 
The women and children pick cotton to buy tobacco. 
If a dog law was passed, what a howl would be set up at 
once ! The wretched legislator would be relegated to 
private life with a rapidity that would lead him to in- 
quire, ' who struck Billy Patterson ? ' For once there is 
no color line, no political boundary. On the question 
of dogs, Black Republican, Radical Democrat, Prohibi- 
tionist and Conservative can rally round the standard of 
one dog rampant, or one slut couchant, sable ; six pups 
levant, regardant, sable or argent. Reverse, sheep being 
devoured, argent. But joking aside, the temperature 
will be decidedly frigid when a dog law will be estab- 
lished in the South. n 

In some instances we have been retrogading on the 
subject of dog legislation. In Kentucky and Missouri 
the dog tax has been repealed. The rest of the South- 
ern States have never had such a tax. In all the North- 
ern States we find either State or local taxation of dogs. 
The money collected forms a fund which is paid to 
those whose sheep have been attacked and killed or n- 
jured. This, while it compensates the farmer for his 
pecuniary loss, does little to encourage the industry. 
The farmer rarely re-invests the money so paid in 
sheep. As to the number actually destroyed, the official 
returns from Massachusetts place the loss in that State 
at 1,900, or 3 per cent, of the entire sheep population; 
from Connecticut 2,119, or 5.84 per cent. In the other 
Northern States the proportion varies from 1 per cent, 
in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, to 4.63 per cent, 
in Indiana. These figures are given in Table III. 



OUR SHKKP AND THE TARIFF. 89 

Where official returns could not be had, the numbers 
are averaged from the opinions of farmers. The pro- 
portion in the South is much larger; still it is fair to 
these States to say that the figures given practically 
includes the stealings by two-legged animals. The 
figures speak for themselves. A total of 716,678 sheep 
annually destroyed by dogs, is not a good showing for 
a nation confessedly believing in progress. Yet in 
Massachusetts, when it was proposed to muzzle all dogs 
in the State, ladies attended the sitting of the Senate 
Chamber with poodles in their laps, and an eloquent 
speaker made such a moving address on cruelty to 
animals that members were observed to weep. I do not 
wish to be understood as advocating any law enforcing 
the muzzling of dogs, but the incident shows how ignor- 
ance in one section and sentimentality in another clog 
the wheels of intelligent legislation. 

As will be seen when we speak of cost and profit, a 
fair return could be had from the right kind of sheep, not 
only in the South, but in all the southern New England 
and in the Middle States. Not, however, where the cur 
is in the majority as in Delaware, New Jersey, Massachu- 
setts and Rhode Island. Whenever this is the case it is 
only a question of time when sheep raising will be 
abandoned. A tax of ten dollars a year, strictly en- 
forced, would, we believe, be a practical remedy for the 
dog nuisance. This tax need not be levied on the 
thorough-bred dog, which seldom chases sheep. Collies, 
for instance, when properly trained, are their best pro- 
tectors; but if we are ever to have small flocks of sheep 
distributed among our farmers, we must destroy the 
mongrel hound by heavy taxation. 

In the far West, as in all thinly settled countries, there 
is little or no trouble with the dog, but the coyote, pan- 
ther, wolf and fox take his place and cause almost as 
much trouble. In New Mexico, indeed, there is little 



90 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

annoyance from coyotes; but in Texas they cause the 
ranchmen a great deal of annoyance and considerable 
loss. The chief result of the presence of a number 
of coyotes, as in the case of dogs, is not so much the 
actual destruction of the sheep, but the great increase 
in the expense necessary to prevent such destruction. 
If it were not for these wild animals,, a herder could 
take charge of a flock one-third larger than it is possi- 
ble for him to guard at present. On ranches labor 
is practically the only item in the cost, therefore wild 
animals must add fully one-third. There is also an 
actual loss annually of three to five per cent. Worse 
than this, the presence of wild animals renders all 
other methods of raising sheep impossible. In Aus- 
tralia, for instance, sheep are never herded, but are 
kept in large paddocks or enclosed fields. This method 
has, as will be seen, many advantages, and if practiced 
in parts of our country would greatly reduce the cost 
of growing wool and mutton. Yet it would be idle 
to leave sheep unprotected in regions infested with wild 
beasts. After building the paddock, you would have 
to hire almost as many men as before to guard the 
flock. This has been the actual experience in southern 
California, where sheep often run in large fields sur- 
rounded by stone fences which were built by the Span- 
iards. Of late the number of wild animals has increased, 
and it has been found impossible to leave sheep without 
a guard. 

The legislation on the subject of coyotes, panthers 
and foxes has been practically unproductive. It consists 
in giving bounties for the heads of the animals killed. 
In Texas the bounty is one dollar for panthers and 
fifty cents for coyotes, but as the proof of death in- 
volves a notary fee almost equal to the bounty paid, 
the law is well nigh useless. In Iowa, where the farm- 
ers are overrun with wolves, a law granting a bounty 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 91 

of ten dollars on every female wolf killed, was intro- 
duced into the Legislature last year. That body, how- 
ever, adjourned without action on the matter. If passed 
it is hoped that the law will prove efficacious, as at 
present these animals make sheep-raising in the State 
practically impossible. It is a waste of time to de- 
scribe to a farmer the profits on sheep, when he knows 
that if he purchases a flock he will have to spend a life 
of constant vigilance to protect them from wild beasts. 
A gentleman who has had some experience says: "Any 
time in the night I may be called upon to chase wolves, 
and twenty-four hours will seldom pass without my 
discharging my gun several times in order to frighten 
these animals." Under such conditions, the highest 
prices and the greatest demand, will not make the State 
a great wool or mutton producing country. The extent 
of the drawback to successful sheep-raising resulting 
from the presence of wild animals, is well shown by 
the following extract from a letter written by Wm. L,. 
Black, Esq., of Fort McKavitt, Texas. I take pleasure 
in copying this portion of Mr. Black's letter in extenso, 
as it deals with the subject from the standpoint of a 
practical wool grower: 

1 ' Wild animals and scab are the only drawbacks to 
producing wool at a very much reduced rate, and it 
therefore calls for the most careful consideration in 
treating of the subject of sheep husbandry in the United 
States. While the immediate cost of producing wool is 
equivalent to fifteen cents per pound under the most 
favorable conditions, it can just as well be produced at 
five cents, and afford the grower a larger profit. To 
reach this end, however, it is necessary to remove and 
destroy wild animals that are now the direct cause of 
probably two-thirds of this expense, in the wages of 
shepherds and incidental losses from flocks by frequent 
attacks of prowling coyotes and wolves, resulting not 



92 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

only in the loss of the sheep actually killed, but some- 
times the loss of several hundred at a time that are cut 
off from the main flock and scattered on the prairies. 
The simple expense of land rent, shearing and lambing 
would be trifling, if sheep could be run loose in pastures, 
as they now do in Australia. That it is practicable to 
do this has been clearly demonstrated by our formidable 
foreign competitor, who had the same experience in 
early days as we are now having; and it would be very 
easy to pattern after her methods. ' ' 

Concerning the last suggestion thrown out by Mr. 
Black, I shall have more to say in a later chapter. To 
exterminate the wild animals, he proposes an increase in 
the bounties. These, he thinks, should be paid by the 
United States government, and be sufficiently high to 
attract large numbers of hunters and trappers. With- 
out discussing the merits of the plan, we agree with 
Mr. Black, that State action in many instances will 
prove useless. One State may destroy the wild animals 
within her borders, but unless her neighbors have sim- 
ilar laws, there will be a constant migration of animals 
into the- more enterprising State. She will not only be 
required to kill all her own foxes, coyotes, panthers and 
wolves, but also a considerable portion of those belong- 
ing to her neighbors. We may not want a national, 
but we certainly want a uniform law on this subject. 

In treating of certain drawbacks to the sheep in- 
dustry in the past and present, I have not lent ammuni- 
tion to those who assert that we cannot raise wool in 
this country. Of all the drawbacks I have mentioned, 
there are none which are of a necessary and permanent 
nature. So far as we have seen, there is no reason why 
we should not try to establish the industry in the United 
States. Many urge that it is too expensive. The force 
of the argument can only be intelligently estimated 
when we know the cost of raising sheep in our own and 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 93 

other countries. We now know something of the in- 
dustry and its distribution among the different foreign 
countries and the States of the United States. In the 
next chapter we shall examine the protection which our 
government has given to wool in the past, and also the 
rates of duty established by our present tariff. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DUTY ON RAW WOOL AND OUR IMPORTS FROM 
FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 

The present division of wools into Class I, Class II, 
and Class III, embracing clothing, combing and carpet 
wool respectively, was first adopted in the tariff of 1867. 
The object was to make the wool used in woolen yarn or 
the clothing wool, the wool used in worsted yarn or the 
combing wool, and the wool used in carpets, pay differ- 
ent rates of duty. As we are at present capable of 
combing short-staple wool, it is impossible to make any 
distinction between combing and carding wool based on 
the different uses to which they are adapted. The cus- 
tom house officials do not attempt to discover the use to 
which the imported article is to be put. The name 
combing is still exclusively confined to the long-staple 
wool of the Leicester, Cotswold, etc. As far as wool in 
the dirt is concerned, the classification of clothing and 
combing is of little moment, as there is only a differ- 
ence of one cent per pound in the duty; but scoured 
combing wools pay only double duty, while treble 
duty is paid on all scoured wools of the first class. 
The definition and classification of carpet wool has 
caused a great deal of trouble. Not more than ten 
million pounds of wool suitable for carpets is grown 
in the United States. There is a firm in the city of 
Philadelphia who use that much carpet wool an- 
nually. In order that our carpet manufactories can 
continue, over 85 per cent, of the wool employed in 
carpets must be imported. The duty should be much 
lower than on clothing wool, as the proportion of raw 

(94) 



uwii xu a. panic max country, instead 01 tne aivision 



TABLE IV.— ,( A." 

DUTY ON RAW WOOL FROM 1 789. 



July 1st, 



May 22d, 
1824. 



May 19th, 



'July 14th, 
1832. 



Free. 
& 40 p 



August 30th, 
1842. 



X cent. 



July 30th, 



* March 3rd 
1857. 



Free 
24 p. c 



May 2nd, I June 30th, 



5P-C. 
3 cents. 
9 cents 



& 10 p. 



3 cents. 



Mnrch 2nd, 
1867, 



& 10 p. c, 
&iop. c. 



March ird, 



1% cents. 



McKinlej 



,,,, I Ills. 



cent, until June 1, 1825; 25 per cent, until June 1, 1826; 30 per cent, afterwards 
f March 2, 1S33, Sec. 1, provided that " from and after the 3'st of December^. ,^ 
:d 20 per cent, ou the value thereof, 
icember, 1839, another tenth part 

half thereof shall be deducted. « Thibet, Angora, and all other goats' hair 
imposed by the Act of March 2, 1867. 'All classes scoured, treble duty; Class 



4^t7p^r^^d7 5 per C ent. on July i, .829; •teJWJ^jjJWjJJ 



The 
all cases where duties are imposed on foreign imports by the Act ol Ui 
^ ™of"^h"^-^U -deducted; fTom and after the g of £ cembe, «»^"^t* 
«« te **»^!i^^S£r^ ir/h^n^re^^per,,,,, ..,,<, 



mohair 
washed, double duty 



'Costing 13 cents or less. 



scanned? Y/N 



(94^ 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 95 

material used in carpets is much greater than the pro- 
portion used in clothes, and a duty on raw material 
falls more heavily on the manufacturer of carpets than 
on the manufacturer of cloth. In accordance with these 
ideas the tariff of 1883, which imposed a duty of 20 per 
cent, per pound on clothing wool, fixed the rate on car- 
pet wool, costing 12 cents or less, at 2^ cents. But 
when we speak of wool which is suitable for carpets, we 
do not include all wools imported under class three. If 
one will take into his hand a sample of imported carpet 
wool, while he will notice that two-thirds is composed 
of long coarse hairy fibres, he will also observe an ad- 
mixture of wool having a moderately short, fine staple. 
Wool grows much finer near the body than at the ends. 
Few animals have such coarse fleece that there will not 
be some clothing wool growing under the coarser fibres. 
Every lot of carpet wool can be separated, and the 
finer staples worked into cloths. Thus a considerable 
amount of the so-called carpet wool imported comes in 
direct competition with wool grown in the United States. 
The new Tariff as introduced into the House provided 
that carpet wools costing 12 cents or less per pound, 
should pay a duty of 3^ cents per pound. This would 
have injured the carpet men, without doing away with 
the present importation of considerable quantities of 
wool suitable for cloths below the regular rates of duty. 
The bill as finally passed has wisely modified the whole 
system of rates on carpet wool. The dividing line is 
placed at thirteen instead of twelve cents. On the 
cheaper grades a duty of 32 per cent, is imposed instead 
of a specific duty, while carpet wools above thirteen cents 
pay fifty per cent. duty. To draw an accurate line be- 
tween carpet and clothing wool is practically impossible. 
As a matter of fact the wools are classed as carpet, not so 
much because of their quality, but because they were 
grown in a particular country. Instead of the division 



96 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

into combing, clothing, and carpet wool, a more accu- 
rate division would be Long, Fine, and Coarse. And 
although it may not appear logical to combine a distinc- 
tion of diameter with one of length, yet it must be re- 
membered that the long wools, though by no means as 
fine as Merino, are very far from resembling hair, like 
some of the coarser grades of carpet wools from Russia 
and the Mediterranian. 

All our tariffs on wool have been based on the un- 
secured product, regardless of the extent of the shrink- 
age in scouring. The duty on scoured clothing wool is 
treble that on wool in the dirt or grease, and is practic- 
ally prohibitory. As we have seen, there is great varia- 
tion in the amount of shrinkage in the wool from 
different countries, and that this is true even of coun- 
tries which grow the same grade of wool. Thus the 
fine wools of Australia shrink fifty per cent. ; those of 
South America seventy. As a result there is a dis- 
crimination against the finer South American wools, 
and the importation of fine wool from the Rio de la 
Platte is prevented. We find another example among 
carpet wools. The Bagdad wool of Asia only shrinks 
about fifteen per cent.'; consequently the tariff on this 
wool is very low in comparison with that on other 
carpet wools. As a consequence it is only the superior 
quality of the South American carpet wool, and the 
mixture of fine staple which it contains, that makes 
its importation profitable. If our tariff rates were 
placed on a scoured wool basis, this discrimination 
between different countries would not exist. Our 
manufacturers, when they had to go to foreigners 
for their raw material, would have the whole world to 
choose from, instead of being confined to certain coun- 
tries where the wool has a low per cent, of shrinkage. 
The trouble of course will be to fix the proportion of 
shrinkage for the different grades of wool from each 




I 

snoq 
saoq 
saoc| 

sruol 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 97 

country. The difficulty, however, is not insurmount- 
able, as for any one year the per cent, of shrinkage of 
the same grade of wool from the same country does not 
vary to any great extent. 

Previous to the present tariff a mistake in classifica- 
tion gave rise to a practice very detrimental to wool 
growers. From 1883 to 1889 we imported 22,149,983 
pounds of shoddy, mungo, waste, etc. This lumping 
together of all kinds of shoddy and waste was one of 
the mistakes of our tariff. Shoddy is wool or cotton 
which has been used in cloth. It is made from rags 
torn in a powerful macule, so arranged that it cuts 
and separates the fibres. Anything long enough to 
have two ends can be turned into shoddy. Where dura- 
bility combined with lightness is not required, shoddy 
is a very serviceable commodity. The fact that it has 
been used before does not interfere with its properties as 
a heat retainer. As a substitute for pure scoured wool, 
it is much more employed in England than in this coun- 
try; for cotton, the other great substitute for wool, is 
relatively much dearer there than with us. The im- 
portation of shoddy does not hurt the wool grower but 
the cotton planter, and the duty benefits the Southerner 
and not the Westerner. 

Some kinds of waste are very different products from 
shoddy. Ring waste and wool tops are highly purified 
articles of scoured wool, which have had the inferior 
fibres, or so-called noils, removed by the process of 
combing. Ring waste, which was entered as waste, at 
a duty of five cents per pound, consists of those fibres 
which have slubbed or tangled in the process of spin- 
ning the tops into yarn. Garnetted waste, which was 
also admitted at the same duty as shoddy, is the product 
of the Garnett machine. In spinning, the slivers fre- 
quently become entangled, and portions have to be re- 
moved. These are fed to the Garnett machine for the 
7 



98 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

purpose of removing the twist given to the fibres by the 
carding engine. The product is really highly scoured 
wool, and should always have paid the treble duty im- 
posed upon the scoured product. If it is contended 
that the duty would then be prohibitory, as the rate on 
scoured wool is proportionately much higher than on 
the unwashed product, I reply that this is rather an ob- 
jection to the duty on scoured wools. To admit a pro- 
duct dutiable at the rate of thirty cents a pound at ten 
cents a pound, simply because it is called waste, is hold- 
ing to the name and disregarding the substance. 

The new tariff obviates the evil as far as the importa- 
tion of ring waste is concerned. All shoddy and waste 
pays a duty of thirty cents per pound; but the rags, out 
of which the shoddy is made, will be admitted at ten 
cents per pound. This prevents ring waste and gar- 
netted waste from being mixed with shoddy, and thus 
admitted at the lower rate of duty. Mungo is admitted 
at ten cents per pound. This is a kind of shoddy made 
from fine, but old woolen rags. Fine wool has, as we 
know, a short staple, and when these rags are torn in a 
powerful machine, the resulting shoddy, now called 
mungo, is more like dust than wool. If there is any 
mixture of ring waste it can be easily detected, and 
therefore it is impossible that there can be any evasion 
of the present rates on scoured wool. Shoddy proper, 
having a comparatively long staple, can be easily carded, 
but it is impossible to card mungo, and it is therefore 
pounded into the cloth, on which a nap is afterwards 
picked by the needles of the teasing engine. The 
mungo, when the cloth is put into rough use, quickly 
works out. The little short tufts which are apt to pull 
out of our rough overcoats are a sample of the wrong 
use of this product. 

As intimated, we import from Australia nearly all the 
fine wool which we do not produce at home. In fact, 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 99 

with the exception of Uraguay, which sends us about 
three million pounds, and Southern Africa, which sends 
us about one million five hundred pounds, all the fine 
wool imported comes from that country. Ninety per 
cent, of the combing wool is grown in Great Britain. 
The total importation of the wools of this class, how- 
ever, is only a little over eight million pounds. Our 
carpet wool comes from Southern Russia, the countries 
of the Eastern Mediterranean, India, and the province 
of Cordova in the Argentine Republic. The bulk of 
our wool from these countries, as from Australia, passes 
through England. That country sends us in all only 
nine million pounds of wool grown in the boundaries of 
Great Britain, but she is the immediate country of ship- 
ment of eighty per cent, of all the wool imported. It 
would be interesting if some one could calculate how 
much we pay for this indirect method of importation. 

As will be seen by looking at the table, there has 
been little change in the amount of the duty on the dif- 
ferent grades of wool since 1864. The duty on clothing 
wool has varied between ten cents per pound and eleven 
per cent, in the tariff of 1867, to ten cents in the tariff 
of 1883. The duty on combing wool has followed the 
duty on wool of the first class; that on the lower orade 
of carpet wool has varied from 3 cents per pound to 
2y 2 cents. The duty on the higher grades of carpet 
wool was 6 cents in 1867, an d 5 cents in 1883. 

In respect to the amount of duty on raw material, the 
tariff of 1890, besides the change to ad valorem duties on 
carpet wool and an increase in the amount of duty on 
waste, has made three alterations. In clothing and 
combing wools, the old distinction between wools cost- 
ing over thirty cents has been abolished. As no wools 
are imported which are worth in London over twenty- 
five cents, this change is wholly immaterial. For all 
wools of Class I the rate has been raised from 10 to 1 1 



IOO OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

cents per pound; and in Class II from 10 to 12 cents. 
With our present information it would be impossible to 
discuss the effect of these changes. We must first deter- 
mine the cost of raising sheep in our own and foreign 
countries. 

The second part of the table accompanying this 
chapter is partly designed to show how far the industry 
in the United States is capable of increasing. On the 
amount of this possible increase depends, in a large 
measure, the extent of the benefit which we can expect 
from a tariff on raw wool, provided that tariff is neces- 
sary for the increase of the industry. Our manufacturers 
consume about 325,000,000 pounds of unwashed wool an- 
nually. Of this we import 100,000,000 pounds. As the 
majority of the wool imported falls under Class III, 
measured by the value of the wool, we import less than 
one-third ; but on the other hand, as the per cent, of 
shrinkage of most of the carpet wool is slight, measured 
by the actual number of pounds of scoured wool, we 
import much more than one-third. If we take the 
average shrinkage of the wool from the different coun- 
tries, and the pounds in the grease or washed state im- 
ported from each, we find that in 1889 there was im- 
ported into the United States about 70,000,000 pounds 
of scoured wool. 

Besides this we also import 140,000,000 pounds of 
scoured wool in manufactured goods. The present 
annual product of scoured wool in the United States 
is about 100,000,000 ; our total annual consumption 
being therefore about 310,000,000 pounds. To supply 
this demand we would have to increase our present pro- 
duction by 210 per cent. 



OF THE UNITED STATES; ALSO THE COST OK RAISING SHEEP, AND THE RETURN FROM SALE OF WOOL IN FOREIGN COUf 



I % M 



V:''- 



ilhl 






CHAPTER VI. 

THE COST AND PROFIT OF RAISING SHEEP IN THE DIF- 
FERENT PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES AND IN FOR- 
EIGN COUNTRIES. 

Like the U X" of Algebra, cost and profit stand for 
uncertain quantities in most industries. The raising of 
sheep is no exception to the rule. One makes a profit 
where another fails. The return being based on the 
prices of wool and mutton, though these may vary from 
year to year, is more easily ascertained than the cost. 
All men in one State or section of the country sell in 
the same market, but in production the personal ele- 
ment confuses our calculations. 

In Table V, I have tried to set forth the cost and 
return from raising sheep in each State and Territory, 
and also the cost of raising sheep and return from wool 
in Australia and other foreign countries. The table 
also shows the decline in prices in America since 1882. 
This decline seems to have reached low- water mark in 
1886-7. The increase in the price in some of the west- 
ern States, such as Utah and New Mexico, is mislead- 
ing, being due to the improvement in the fleece. 

The average price which one will receive for his wool 
is not difficult to ascertain. The price of mutton, how- 
ever, is more uncertain, and the figures given in the 
table must not be taken for more than an outline. 
There is probably nothing which varies so greatly as 
the price of meat, not only with the season of the year, 
but also with the age and condition of the animal. Old 
ewes or wethers may not bring three dollars per hun- 
dred pounds, when at the same time and place three- 

(101) 



102 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

months-old lambs, weighing from forty to fifty pounds, 
will demand seven and nine dollars per head. 

In dealing with the cost of sheep raising, I have at- 
tempted to illustrate in the diagram, not only the total 
cost, but the per cent, which should be assigned to food, 
interest, labor and land. To give the average propor- 
tion of the cost of keeping a sheep for one year, which 
is due to interest or to wages in a State the size 
of Pennsylvania would be impossible. Even if practi- 
cable, such an average would be useless. A general 
statement or average is only valuable when individual 
instances will not in all likelihood vary from that aver- 
age in any considerable degree. In dealing with cost 
and profit, I was therefore obliged to confine myself in 
many instances to parts of States, such as Western Mas- 
sachusetts and Southern Wisconsin, etc. 

THE RETURN FROM FIELD SHEEP. 

Under this head, we shall first look at the return for 
Merinos, and then compare the result with the return 
for the English breeds. 

The annual increase of the field Merino when kept 
under the present conditions is about 75 per cent. The 
loss of lambs and sheep is about 15 per cent. If you 
own one hundred ewes, sixty sheep can annually be 
sent to market without reducing the number of your 
flock. But to calculate the average return per sheep 
from the sale of mutton, we must remember that a flock 
is never composed entirely of ewes. The number of 
ewes and wethers born is about equal. Unless killed as 
lambs, these wethers are usually kept until they are 
two years old. Suppose a farmer has one hundred ewes, 
and does not care to increase or reduce his flock. At 
the end of each year he will have a flock of 220 ani- 
mals, distributed as follows:. One hundred ewes over two 
years old, thirty ewes and thirty wethers two years old, 




,s8 






fOf'l.s 



for , s 



f f JC«J 



sir 



■■ ■ ■ 






OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 103 

and sixty lambs twelve months old. He can then send 
thirty of his old ewes and thirty wethers to the market. 
Not counting the lambs under a year old, his flock 
would always consist of 160 sheep, sixty of which, or 
$jy 2 per cent., are annually sold for mutton. The net 
return for mutton, over the expense of killing and ship- 
ping to the nearest market, will average about five cents 
per pound (live weight). The live weight of the Me- 
rino is about ninety pounds. Thus the annual return 
from the sale of mutton averages for every sheep in the 
flock $i.68%\ To this we must add 7^ pounds of wool 
at 26 cents per pound, or $1.95, which makes a gross total 
of $3.6334^. It maybe interesting to compare this re- 
sult with the probable result under free trade prices. 
Under free trade, the price of wool grown on fine Me- 
rinos would probably fall to 19 cents, the average price 
for such wool in London. This would reduce the gross 
return to $3.31^. The gross profit of Southdown 
sheep to the average Eastern farmer is now somewhat 
more than from pure Merinos. The returns from the 
English animals may be estimated as follows: 

4 l / 2 pouuds of wool at 25 cents per pound $1 12^ 

52.8 pounds of mutton at 5 cents per pound (44 per cent, of 120). 2 64 

Total from Southdown $3 7 6 /^ 

Total from Merinos 3 6 4 

Difference 12^ 

In explanation of the large return from the sale of 
mutton, we must remember that the Down breeds are 
noted for their fecundity. An annual increase of 120 
per cent, is not unusual. 44 per cent, of the flock 
annually sent to market is therefore rather an under 
than an over estimate. It may be asked why in com- 
paring the gross profits of the two breeds, merino and 
Southdown, I have made a difference of only three 



104 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

pounds in the weight of the wool, while in Table I the 
difference is given as four and one-half pounds ? There 
I was comparing sheep kept by experienced breeders. 
In estimating the actual returns received by farmers, 
we must remember that it is much easier to raise an 
animal bearing a large quantity of good mutton than 
one bearing a large amount of fine wool. It is true that 
many merinos carry fleeces weighing fifteen pounds. 
These, however, are not owned by even "good average 
farmers," but by breeders. In discussing the present 
relative advantages of the different breeds of stock, we 
must deal with the ordinary man and the profit to him, 
not with the specialist. 

RETURN FROM RANCH SHEEP. 

The best ranch sheep, those of Montana, Oregon, 
etc., will clip 6% pounds of wool, which at 20 cents per 
pound is $1.25 per sheep. The poorest ranch sheep, 
those of New Mexico, 2% pounds of wool, which will 
sell at the rate of 15 cents per pound. The return from 
the wool in New Mexico will therefore be 37^ cents. 

The calculation of the return from mutton is, as in the 
case of field sheep, somewhat more difficult. The an- 
nual increase over the death rate for both lambs and 
sheep is about fifty per cent, of the number of ewes, in 
Montana, and forty per cent, in New Mexico. The 
profit per pound of mutton over the cost of transporta- 
tion, is three and two cents, respectively. The average 
weight of the Montana sheep is fifty pounds; the weight 
of the sheep of New Mexico, forty pounds. Suppose 
we start with a flock of 1,000 ewes, and we do not desire 
to increase our flock; but, as wool is the chief object, we 
intend to keep our wethers until they are five years old; 
what proportion of our flock could we send annually to 
market, estimating the increase as in Montana at 50 per 
cent.? At the end of the first year we will have 1,000 



OUR SHKEP AND THE TARIFF. 105 

ewes, and we will also have 500 lambs; at the end of 
the second year, 1500 sheep and 500 lambs. Fully one- 
half of the increase are wethers. Two hundred and 
fifty, or one-half the annual increase, are therefore all 
the ewes which can be killed in any one year. At the 
end of the fifth and each succeeding year, the flock 
will number 2,250, and 500 lambs. Of the sheep, 
1,250 are ewes, and 1,000 are wethers; 250 of these lat- 
ter, being five years old, are ready for the shambles. 
Each year, therefore, 500 sheep can be sent to market. 
This is 22 per cent, of the flock. As the average 
weight of a Montana sheep is fifty pounds, to calculate 
the average return per head, we can assume that each 
sheep yields 22 per cent, of fifty pounds, or eleven 
pounds of mutton annually. At three cents per pound, 
this makes the return from mutton thirty-three cents 
per year. 

As a result of the above, in Montana, the credit side 
of the account would stand thus: 

Wool, 6% pounds per sheep, at 20 cents per pound $1 25 

11 pounds of mutton per sheep (22 per cent of 50 lbs.; at 3 

cents per pound 33 

$1 58 

In New Mexico: 

2*4 pounds of wool per sheep at 15 cents per pound 37^ 

8 pounds of mutton per sheep (20 per cent, of 40 lbs.) at 2 

cents per pound 16 

53 J A 

These figures represent the gross profits on the best 
and meanest ranch animals, when no increase in num- 
bers is desired. The duty on wool coming in competi- 
tion with that from Montana is 10 cents; that on the 
clip of New Mexico, either five or ten cents, according 
to whether it would be classed as carpet or clothing 



106 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

wool. But the fall in the prices of Montana and similar 
wool under free trade cannot be measured by the amount 
of the present duty. It would not be likely that the 
wool from Montana, for instance, would fall below fif- 
teen cents, the average price for similar Australian and 
South American wools, and that grown in New Mexico 
would not fall below twelve cents, the price now paid 
for similar wools in the London markets. 

The gross- profit under free trade in wool therefore 
stands as follows: 

Montana: 

6% pounds of wool at 15 cents per pound 93^ 

Return from mutton (unchanged) 33 

$1 26^ 

New Mexico: 

2 )/ 2 pounds of wool at twelve cents per pound 30 

Return for mutton (unchanged) 16 

~6 
RETURN FROM ROAMING OR SOUTHERN SHEEP. 

To calculate the return from these sheep is very 
simple: 

There are 2}4 pounds of wool, which will sell at 22 
cents per pound. This makes 55 cents. The wool, 
though little better than carpet, sells at a good figure 
on account of the slight shrinkage in scouring. This 
shrinkage is seldom more than 35 per cent. The return 
from mutton is so uncertain that it cannot be estimated 
with any pretension to accuracy. In Table V. we have 
placed it at 25 cents. The sheep belonging to the poor 
whites, however, are seldom sold for mutton. 

COST OF RAISING FIELD SHEEP. 
As before stated, a farmer in Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
New York or the East, seldom devotes himself exclu- 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 107 

sively to sheep raising. This is due to the cost of land. 
Land in Pennsylvania, for instance, which will support 
six sheep to the acre, will cost about $55. Calculating 
the rent at 10 per cent., the usual rent for land where 
the landlord pays the taxes and keeps the fences in 
repair, this is already 92 cents, which is as much as 
the entire cost of raising sheep in Australia or South 
America. In New York, land which will support 
five and one-half sheep to an acre will cost $40. 
This is at the rate of 75 cents per sheep a year. 
The section of country comprising Southeastern Ohio, 
Washington county, Pennsylvania, and Northwestern 
West Virginia, is the centre of the fine- wool industry in 
the United States. Indeed, the finest wool in the world 
comes from this district. Even here, however, the 
farmer seldom devotes himself exclusively to raising 
sheep. Where no more sheep are kept on a farm than 
the land which must be allowed to lie fallow every year 
will support, or, to be more accurate, where the number 
of sheep is not sufficient to affect the production of 
agriculture, the item of land does not enter into the 
cost. On the other hand, where sheep raising is the 
sole pursuit, the entire cost of the land all falls on this 
industry. In this case its value will be regulated, as in 
Australia, by the number of sheep it can support. Be- 
tween these two extremes are the cases where more land 
is left in pasturage than is necessary to rest the soil, yet 
the farmer by no means confines himself to stock-raising. 
Thus the item of land, in the cost of sheep, not only 
varies with the cost of the land and the number of 
sheep per acre, but also with the extent to which the 
raising of sheep interferes with the farmer's production 
in other directions. In the section of country above men- 
tioned, and the same may be said of Central New York 
and Southern Wisconsin, many of the farmers keep a 
greater number of sheep than is sufficient to utilize 



to8 I 'i R SHEEP ani> THE TARII r. 

their waste and fallow lands. At the same time they 
do not confine themselves to sheep-raising, In all the 
othei portions of our country, however, where field 
sheep are raised, we seldom find a farmer keeping 
enough sheep to interfere with his production of other 
crops and breeds o( stock. 

The last tart will explain what the reader has prob- 
ably noticed, that sheep can still be raised in New 
l [ampshire and Vermont, where the total tost appears to 
ho greater than the return. If only a very few animals 

arc- kept the item oi' laud lived not he- taken into 
consideration. But if the tanner increase his flock to 
such an extent that he is obliged to restrict his cultiva- 
tion oi other things, then the item oi land begins to 
enter into the cost ; while it" he devotes himself exclu- 
sively to sheep-raising, the cost oi land tails entirely on 
that industry, and the total cost of keeping sheep would 

equal the amount indicated in the diagram. 
In the following table we have taken the average cost 

Oi laud used tor sheep-raisiiu; in the section indicated. 
In most oi the States where field sheep are raised, the 

rental value of land appreciates much more rapidly than 
its value for grazing purposes. That is to say, the item 

of land in tlu- eost oi eaeh sheep IS much larger where 
the animals are placed on very fertile soil, than where 
they are run cm poorer and cheaper land. The figures 

given below demonstrate the truth oi this statement 

Whatever may regulate the value oi' land in these 
States, it is certainly not the relative capacity for carry- 
ing sheep. 



or;i< SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 



K>9 



Stats. 



Vermont. 

New Hampshire 

, West . . . . 

<« <« 

< < < < 

N'-w York 

Delaware 

Pennsylvania, West 

i < < < 

West Virgina, North w 
Ohio, South eastern 

Illinois and Indiana . . . . 

Hil higan, South 

Michigan, North 

Wisconsin, South 

lo.v.i . 

Missouri, North 



Land Chat will 
bring 



f20 # ooper*4 re. 
15.00 

10.00 " 

8.00 " 

/\>>.'/> " 

too 00 " 

40.00 " 

$O,00 " 

60.00 " 

55.00 " 

40.00 " 

40.00 " 

50.00 " 

40.00 " 

$0.00 " 

40.00 " 

J5.00 *' 

[O.00 " 



Will 

•upporl 

to an 

tu re 



3 " 

2 " 

.5 " 

8 " 

5^ " 

6 " 

7 " 

6 *' 

7 " 
6 •' 

5# " 

6 " 

s " 

X " 

6 " 

6 " 

2 " 



Whir b 

t of 



fo.67 per sheep. 

,50 " 

.?> " 

.46 " 

.80 " 
1.2.5 

•75 " 

.87 " 

.86 " 

,94 " 

1.90 " 

,67 " 

.75 " 

.10 " 
M 



The cost of raising field sheep depends on two other 
-rs besides the cost of land, namely: the cost of feed 
and the cost of labor. An investigation into the first 
must necessarily be more accurate, and therefore more 
satisfactory, than any investigation into the cost of land 
ry sheep requires three pounds of clover hay, or its 
equivalent, per day; or, to be more accurate, three 

pounds of clover hay for everyone hundred pounds of 
live weight. Three pounds of clover hay is equivalent 
to four and one-half pounds of millet, ten and one-half 
pounds of sorghum, and fifteen pounds of prairie hay. 

To obtain the best results this dry fodder should be 
mixed with oats or corn, ensilage, beets, etc. It is prac- 
tically impossible to give the equivalent of clover hay 
in oats or corn. Much depends upon the character of 
the result required. The price of the hay, however, 
forms a very fair basis for judging the cost of feeding. 
On the calculation of three pounds of clover hay per day, 



IIO OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

hay being at ten dollars per ton of 2,000 pounds, the 
cost per sheep will be 45 cents per month. At nine 
dollars the cost per month will be 40^ cents, at seven 
dollars 31 }4 cents, at five dollars 22^2 cents, and so on. 
The actual cost of clover hay, or its equivalent, varies 
from nine to ten dollars in Massachusetts to five and six 
dollars in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. Prairie hay in 
Kansas is about two dollars per ton. The cost of food 
is the most important element in the question of the 
profitableness of field sheep. The cost of land can be 
eliminated by restricting the number of the sheep to 
those the farmer can raise on the land without affecting 
his production of other things ; but the sheep must 
be fed. 

The item of labor only enters into the cost of field 
sheep when enough are kept, say over one hundred, 
to necessitate the employment of an extra hand, either 
all the year, or at the lambing season. While the ani- 
mals are in the field they require little or no care. 
In winter, when the sheep are housed, one man can 
attend to about five hundred. During the lambing 
season there should be one man to every one hundred 
ewes. WhCre sheep are kept on good-sized farms in 
connection with other stock, one man for two months to 
every one hundred sheep, will cover the cost of labor 
and shearing. Where flocks of less than a hundred are 
kept, no extra hands will have to be employed. In the 
Bast, when shearers are hired, shearing costs from six 
to ten cents per sheep. The proportion which the cost 
of labor bears to the total cost, as shown in the diagram, 
is based on the assumption that sheep are kept in con- 
nection with other stock, with but one extra hand to 
every hundred animals, for two months in the Spring. 
Where the number of the flock is under one hundred, 
the labor of caring for them is usually said to be more 
than compensated by the value of the manure. Except 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. Ill 

in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, the flocks rarely 
exceed fifty sheep, and even in this last section the aver- 
age is below a hundred. 

In order to estimate the total cost of keeping field 
sheep, to the items already discussed one must add 
interest on the investment. This has been calculated 
at six pef cent, on three dollars per head, or eighteen 
cents per sheep a year. Three dollars is a low price 
for sheep in the Bast, if the animal is sold separately 
and is in good condition ; but is probably all that could 
be obtained for an average flock if sold in one lot. The 
cost of the buildings is insignificant, and the interest 
on all permanent improvements, even when the most 
approved folds are built, will never amount to over five 
cents per sheep a year. When small flocks are kept 
they are housed in the main part of the barn, or in a 
shed which leans against a larger building. 

As will be inferred from the above, the cost of keep- 
ing sheep per head varies with the proportion of the 
number of the sheep to the size of the farm. Flocks 
numbering less than one hundred, conducted in con- 
nection with other agricultural pursuits, are decidedly 
more profitable per sheep than when the industry is 
conducted on a larger scale. Thus in western Massa- 
chusetts if sheep-raising was made the sole industry, 
the cost per sheep would stand as follows : 

Food for four months and a half $2 02 

Labor. One man at $17 per month for every 100 ewes. Board 

for two months at $6.00 per month 46 

Land (2 sheep to an acre at the rent of $1.00 per acre) 50 

Interest on the cost of buildings and other permanent improve- 
ments 05 

Interest on value of the stock, calculated at six per cent, on $3 
per sheep 18 

Total • • . . #3 21 



112 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

The cost per sheep for flocks under one hundred 
sheep is : 

Food as above $2 02 

Interest on value of sheep, as above 18 

Total $2 20 

The cost where more sheep are raised than the farm- 
er's waste and fallow land will support, raising sheep 
not being his sole occupation, varies between these two 
extremes. As a matter of fact, the farmer in all the 
Eastern, and even in States of the Ohio valley, except 
in a few localities, raises so few sheep that the items of 
land and labor seldom enter into the cost. 

The diagram also indicates the effect of climate. In 
Vermont sheep have to be fed for six months and a half. 
The item of food amounts to $2.34 per sheep. In Ken- 
tucky, except possibly for one month in the year, the 
animals can find sufficient grass, and the cost of food 
seldom exceeds 36 cents. 

COST OF RANCH SHEEP. 

Ranch sheep raising is conducted by men who are 
devoting their whole energy to solving the problem of 
cheap wool. The estimates of the cost of raising sheep 
in Pennsylvania often vary from fifty to one hundred 
per cent. , but in Montana and Texas the extreme esti- 
mates of ranchmen, in reply to my circular on the sub- 
ject, did not differ twenty-five per cent. The item of 
land in many sections can be disregarded. The owner- 
ship of a small tract or water right will give the posses- 
sor a free range on Government lands. Of course, it 
cannot be laid down as a universal proposition that the 
item of land never enters into the cost. In Texas, for 
instance, many own or rent their land. The rent or 
cost, however, is still very low. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 113 

In the New England States food forms the bulk of 
the expense; among ranch sheep, except in the extreme 
Northwest, food does not enter into the cost at all. 
For instance, even in Colorado, in spite of the cold of 
the winter, the little hay which is given seldom amounts 
to more than three cents a head. Labor, therefore, and 
interest on the investment, are the chief items. The 
latter remains practically constant, but the former 
varies according to the character of the population. It 
may astonish one who imagines that labor in a new 
country is particularly mobile, to learn that for a herds- 
man in Montana the wages are from thirty to thirty-five 
dollars a month; in New Mexico, fifteen dollars; yet 
we do not observe a great exodus from the Territory to 
the State. 

The cost of labor per sheep, exclusive of the cost of 
shearing and burring, varies from 15.42 cents in New 
Mexico, to 44.4 cents in Utah and Nevada. The small 
cost in the first-named Territory is due to the great size 
of the herds, and the low wages. With five thousand 
sheep in a band, two men to watch the band, and an 
overseer, for every four bands, who is only paid forty 
dollars a month, we have that combination of con- 
ditions under which sheep can be herded at the lowest 
cost. 

Roughly speaking, there may be said to be two 
methods of herding sheep. First, you may divide your 
flock into bands, numbering fifteen hundred or two 
thousand each. Every two bands will require at least 
three men. You then superintend the business your- 
self, or hire a manager at fifteen hundred or three 
thousand dollars per year. Where you have 50,000 
sheep, if you pay your manager $2,000, and his expenses 
are $500 more; he will only cost you at the rate of five 
cents a sheep. The wages and expenses of the herds- 
men will average about $25 per month; $18 for wages, 
8 



114 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

and $7 for provisions. There will be about a thousand 
sheep to each man. This makes the item of labor 30 
cents plus five cents, or thirty-five cents. The other 
method is to have one man, sometimes called an overseer, 
for every two, three, or four bands. The overseer is 
paid about as much again as the ordinary herdsmen. 
There are also one or two herdsmen to each band. If 
there is an overseer for every three bands, at the cost of 
fifty dollars per month, then on the basis of two thou- 
sand sheep to a band, our overseer will cost ten cents per 
head, or five cents more than by the other method. In 
Texas there is usually an overseer for every two bands, 
and fifteen or eighteen hundred sheep in a band. 
Larger herds when frightened become unmanageable. 
In fact, after one has improved the quality of his flock, 
he usually reduces the number to twelve hundred or a 
thousand. The coyote and other wild animals alone 
prevent sheep being run in much larger herds. If the 
danger from this source were removed, there is no reason 
why we should not have double the number in a band, 
thereby reducing the cost by almost as great an amount 
as the tariff enhances the price. 

In Utah, on the ranch of Charles Crane, there is an 
overseer for every three bands, together with two men 
to each band of a thousand or fifteen hundred sheep. 
This makes the cost of labor forty-four cents, but the 
success of Mr. Crane proves that it is not always the 
cheapest methods of herding which are the most profit- 
able. In Oregon and Washington, during the summer 
months, the sheep are taken on the ranch in bands 
numbering about two thousand. It is usual to have 
two men accompany a band. On the large ranches in 
Colorado, storemen, and also captains, are employed, or 
men who pass between the various bands and hunt for 
stray sheep, scattered by the storms or the coyote. As 
before stated, south of Colorado sheep are not fed. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 115 

Even in that State and Wyoming the cost of feeding 
amounts to little, though ranchmen are now consid- 
ering the advisability of providing a greater quantity 
of fodder. The severe winter of Montana necessitates 
an outlay of twenty to fifty cents per head ; the amount 
varying greatly with the severity of the season. 

The item of interest on permanent improvements and 
on the value of sheep themselves forms an important 
part of the cost. A gentleman who has one hundred and 
twenty thousand sheep on a ranch in Colorado, claims 
that one hundred thousand dollars will cover the total 
cost of all improvements, such as wells, store-houses, 
houses, sheds and corrals. At 10 per cent, interest, this 
is at the rate of S}4 cents per sheep a year. The inter- 
est on the value of the sheep themselves I have taken 
as 6 per cent, on 60 per cent, of the nominal value of 
sound animals. As in the case of the field sheep, I 
consider that interest should be calculated on the price 
of an average flock, and not on the selling price of ani- 
mals carefully selected and sold separately. Average 
sheep in good condition, sold in small lots, are worth 
$2.00 apiece in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico; $2.50 
in Northern and Eastern Texas, and $3.00 in Oregon, 
Washington and Montana. The Interest, therefore, 
will be 7t<j, 9 and 9r 8 o cents per sheep respectively. In 
calculating the total cost of ranch sheep, we must 
add to the items already discussed from 5 to 7 cents per 
sheep for shearing, and also from 5 to 10 cents more 
to cover all extras. Thus, in Montana the shearing 
will cost six cents, and the extras amount to about ten 
cents, while in Arizona shearing will be done for five 
cents, and the extras will not exceed eight cents. In 
the diagram we have included the cost of shearing and 
the extras in the item of labor. 

One of the significant facts in connection with the 
cost of ranch sheep is the great difference between the 



Il6 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

Northwest and the Southwest. Take Montana and 
New Mexico, for instance. Everything seems to be 
in favor of the wool grower in New Mexico. The 
wages are almost half, and the climate of Montana 
necessitates the employment of a larger number of men. 
As a result the item of labor amounts to twenty-six 
cents more in Montana. In New Mexico the sheep 
need never be fed; in Montana feed costs twenty- 
five cents, and should amount to one dollar if the 
animals were properly kept. In New Mexico shelter 
is not needed, in Montana shelter must be provided. 
In New Mexico the total cost is not over forty-five 
cents, in Montana it is between eighty cents and a 
dollar. One might imagine that men would never at- 
tempt to raise sheep in the latter State, or if they did, 
that the competition of such States as New Mexico 
would render any such attempt fruitless. Yet what 
are the facts? In 1883 there was scarcely a sheep in 
Montana. Now there are eight hundred thousand, 
and the number is constantly increasing. In New 
Mexico the number is the same now (1890) as in 1883. 
Besides this, it is claimed that the average New Mex- 
ican has not made money, while the efforts of the 
ranchmen of Montana have been almost uniformly suc- 
cessful. As was previously stated, one of the causes 
for this unlooked-for result is the difference in the 
character of the sheep ; the fact that New Mexico has 
been the home of the Scrub, while Montana started 
with an improved animal. But the Scrub is not re- 
sponsible for all the difference. The character of the 
people must also be taken into consideration. In New 
Mexico the care of sheep is left largely in the hands of 
half-breeds, and more or less degenerated Mexicans. 
Then,' as in Texas, New Mexico has been over-run with 
inexperienced persons from other parts of the country, 
having a little capital and great expectations. On the 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 117 

other hand, the success of the Montanians is due to their 
enterprise rather than to any favorable natural condi- 
tions. 

THE COST OF SOUTHERN OR ROAMING SHEEP. 

As before explained, the majority of the sheep in this 
section roam unattended over the waste lands. The 
total expense is in the catching, shearing and marking. 
To this we might possibly add the interest on the value 
of the animals themselves. The regular price is two 
dollars per head, whether the animals are sold separ- 
ately or in lots; and one might almost add, whether 
in good or bad condition. With interest at seven per 
cent, this is only fourteen cents per sheep, which makes 
the total cost thirty-nine cents per year. No Southern 
farmer, however, would think of estimating interest as 
part of the cost, as the proceeds of the sale of his few 
sheep would not be sufficient to invest. If he parts 
with any of his flock, it is simply to eke out the slender 
living of the year. 

^ Those sheep which are kept in enclosed fields in the 
South are but little more expensive than those which 
run on the free or waste lands. The sheep are never 
numerous enough to occupy fields which would other- 
wise be used for raising tobacco or cotton, and therefore 
the cost of land, as likewise the little cotton-seed meal 
which is occasionally fed to them, can be disregarded. 

COST OF RAISING SHEEP IN AUSTRALIA. 

Let us now turn from the conditions and cost of rais- 
ing sheep in the United States to those in foreign coun- 
tries. And especially let us look at the cost and condi- 
tions of raising sheep in Australia. This is the country 
in which the industry has made its greatest triumphs. 
What is the secret of its success? In order to answer 
this question or to appreciate any fact connected with 



Il8 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

the industry in Australia, we must not only have a 
knowledge of the method of raising sheep, but also 
some insight into the land system.* Sheep in Aus- 
tralia, except in a few unimportant instances, are not 
herded. Ask a colonist how many attendants he re- 
quires, and he will reply that sheep have no attend- 
ants in our sense of the word. They are allowed to run 
in large fields or paddocks. The fences are usually of 
wire. There is great variety in the size of these 
paddocks. In some places they contain as many 
as thirty square miles, in others not more than two 
thousand acres. The larger paddocks are usually 
found where the grass is sparse. Near the coast the 
grasses being much heavier, on account of the more 
frequent rains, the paddocks are smaller, the best sheep 
being frequently changed from one to the other. Sheep 
farms are known as stations, or runs, though if one man 
owns a large run he may have two or more farms or sta- 
tions, where the men live and where the supplies are 
kept. Thus the word station means either the build- 
ings on a run, or the run itself. Though the govern- 
ments of the colonies have made some attempt to limit 
the size and number of runs which may be owned by 
one person, nevertheless those who were early in the 
field have built up immense estates. Thus, S. Mc- 
Caughey, of New South Wales, owns one million two 
hundred thousand sheep, which graze on three and one- 
half million acres of land. It is not unusual to find a 
man owning a flock of twenty thousand. 

The rate of farm wages in Australia, $292 to $365 per 
annum, is not very different from the rate for similar 
labor in the United States, being somewhat more than 
in the southern or southeastern States, and somewhat 
less than in Montana and on the North Pacific coast. 
The secret of the low cost of sheep in Australia, there- 

* See Appendix. 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 119 

fore, is not the difference in the rate of wages; for that, as 
far as the employer is concerned, is often in favor of the 
United States. Is it then in their method of enclosing 
sheep in large fields ? To answer this, let us investigate 
the outlay necessary to keep a definite number of sheep 
in Australia, under the paddock system, and compare the 
result with the cost of herding the same number of 
sheep in the United States. For this purpose we will 
take a flock of 20,000 fine Merinos. With us, these 
sheep would be divided into bands of twelve hundred 
each. I make the number twelve hundred instead 
of the usual fifteen hundred or two thousand, because 
I am comparing the finest sheep in both countries, 
and am supposing that the best care possible under a 
herding system is being given to the flock. For these 
twenty thousand sheep there will be twenty-five men, 
or an average of one man and a half to each band. 
Wages in northeast Texas, where the climate is not 
unlike Australia, are fifteen to eighteen dollars a month 
and board, which latter is calculated at from six to 
eight dollars. This makes the labor twenty-five dollars 
per month a man, or three hundred dollars a year. 
Seven thousand five hundred dollars is therefore the 
total cost of labor per annum for twenty thousand sheep; 
in other words, thirty-seven and one-half cents per head. 
The cost in Victoria, as elsewhere in Australia, or in 
this country, will vary greatly with the character of the 
run, and the carrying capacity of the laud. Near the 
coast, on imported grasses, there will be as many as six 
or seven sheep to an acre. In the interior the number of 
sheep per acre rapidly decreases, while in the Mallee 
country, of which we shall have something to say in the 
Appendix, six, seven, and even ten or twelve acres, will 
be required to rear one sheep. For our comparison, let 
us take an average of one sheep to every two acres. I 
may state that, though in Victoria this average would be 



120 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 



considered as only fair land, in Western Australia it 
would be regarded as very good pasturage. In Queens- 
land the average is somewhat higher than the figures we 
have taken. * To support twenty thousand sheep, forty 
thousand acres will be required. This we can divide into 
ten square paddocks of four thousand acres each. This 
enables the sheep to be changed from one paddock to 
another, thus utilizing the land to the best advantage. 
These paddocks will require upwards of sixty-seven and 
a half miles of fence, even when the boundaries are 
arranged in the most economical manner. Of course, a 
run owner can seldom build his paddocks so as to enclose 
the greatest number of acres with the least amount of 
wire. The land is usually surveyed by the government 
before purchase ; though in some instances the boun- 
daries of the run are selected by the purchaser. Even 
in this latter case, its general character is defined by 
certain rules. In New South Wales, for instance, the 
distance between the sides of the parallelograms and 
rectangles into which the land may be divided, must 
never be less than one-half the length of the longest 
side. Of course, the. lessee or owner can always cut up 
the interior of his run into paddocks of the size and 
character he may prefer. The ten subdivisions into 
which we have divided the land are perhaps more than 
would be usual where only one sheep could be run to 
every two acres, and would indicate that the owner de- 
sired to improve the bearing capacity of the land. 



*U. S. Consular Reports, No. 121, Oct., 1890, p. 256. 




Colony. 


No. of acres 
per sheep. 


Colony. 


No. of acres 
per sheep. 


New South Wales. . 

Victoria 

Queensland 

South Australia. . . 


2.92 
2.01 

6-75 
42.86 


West Australia. . . 

Tasmania 

New Zealand . . . 


176.70 

5-23 
2.21 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 121 

For these sixty-seven and one-half miles of fence 
we must have three men known as boundary riders. 
A boundary rider is one whose duty it is to see that 
the fence is in order. In a flat country one man can 
take care of twenty-five to thirty miles of fence. 
The land in Australia, except near the southern and 
eastern coasts, is almost level, or only slightly un- 
dulatory. The boundary riders receive $291.99 per 
annum, and also their board. The board may be 
calculated, as indicated above, at seven dollars per 
month. Besides the boundary riders, four shepherds 
must be employed. The shepherds being men of more 
experience, are paid at the rate of $364. 97 per annum. 
A cook, a storekeeper, and two general laborers, will 
complete the permanent force at the station. A super- 
intendent, of course, will be necessary. The salaries 
of superintendents, however, ranging all the way from 
$1,000 per annum to an interest in the business, are as 
impossible to estimate as in America. In our compari- 
son we have therefore omitted this item. The above is an 
over-estimate of the number of hands, for all colonies ex- 
cept Western Australia and Victoria. In the former some 
sheep are herded, the Chinese and aboriginal inhabitants 
being employed as laborers at very low rates of wages. In 
Victoria greater care is given to sheep than in any other 
colony, and consequently a greater number of hands are 
employed. In Queensland the average is one man to 
eight thousand sheep, or three men to twenty-four thou- 
sand sheep, excluding cooks, storekeepers and general 
laborers. The cost of labor in Australia for twenty 
thousand sheep will, as a result of the above, amount to 
$3667.07. This is 18.3 cents per sheep, against 37 }4 
cents in the United States as a result of the herd- 
ing process. The advantage of running sheep in large 
enclosed tracts is obvious. But the difference is even 
more striking if we reduce the calculation to Texas 



122 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

wages. Ten men at a cost of $300 per year is only 
$3,000, or 15 cents per sheep. The true difference in 
favor of the Australian system is therefore $22.5 cents. 

Of course, this advantage is somewhat modified, when 
we take into consideration the interest on the cost of 
the fences. The cost of fencing per sheep depends on 
the carrying capacity of the land. The expense which 
attends the erection of a three-strand barb wire fence 
in the United States is 51 j£ cents per rod, divided as 
follows : 

3^ pounds of barb wire at 6 cents per pound 22.5 

1 post at 20 cents 20.0 

.5625 pounds of fence staples at 5 cents 2.8125 

Labor 5-9375 

Total 51-2500 

The cost in Australia will not vary materially from 
these figures. 

For sixty-seven and a half miles, the cost will 
amount to $11,070. Interest on all improvements on 
land should be calculated at 10 per cent, where the or- 
dinary rate of interest is 6 to 8 per cent. The 10 per 
cent, covers the cost of repairing or the loss from deteri- 
oration. Ten per cent, on $11,070 makes $1,107 as the 
annual cost of a fence large enough to enclose twenty 
thousand sheep. This is at the rate of 5.535 cents per 
sheep. Adding the cost of fencing to the cost of labor, 
we have 20. 535 cents as the cost of doing in Australia 
what it takes 37^ cents in the United States to accom- 
plish. And remember, this is not due to the perennial 
climate of these colonies, nor to the low rate of wages, 
but simply to a difference in method. 

The next two items of cost are strictly Australian. 
Unsettled land can rarely be bought outright for pas- 
toral purposes. New land suitable for sheep-raising is 
usually leased from the government. In Victoria the 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 1 23 

rent is based on the carrying capacity of the land. The 
price is one shilling per annum for each sheep which the 
land is capable of sustaining. This it somewhat higher 
than in the rest of Australia. Besides the rent of one 
shilling, permanent improvements to the value of 
is. 6d. or 39 cents per acre on land that will bear two 
sheep to the acre, have to be made by the lessee 
within three years from the commencement of the 
lease. These improvements consist in buildings, wells, 
etc. They also include fences, but as I desire to 
compare the paddock system with our own method 
of herding, I have treated the cost of fencing as a 
separate item. To the interest on improvements which 
is calculated at ten per cent., must be added the interest 
on the value of the stock itself. The value of sheep in 
Australia varies considerably. In periods of drought 
they have been known to be practically given away. 
The normal price is about two dollars per head. When 
the frozen meat trade is once firmly established, as it is 
in New Zealand, prices for mutton will be much 
steadier, though probably not a great deal higher than 
at present. I have placed the price of shearing as 
4 Y 5 cents per sheep. This covers the wages of the 
shearers, which are from 20 to 25 shillings per hundred, 
but a fraction more might possibly be added for board. 

As a result of the above, the total expense per annum 
is found to be 71.2683 cents per sheep, or $14,254.37 for 
a flock of twenty thousand. There are many incidentals 
which are not included in this calculation, but it is 
believed that enough margin has been allowed on the 
different items, especially on the interest on permanent 
improvements, to cover all extras. The larger the 
flock the smaller the cost per sheep. It must also 
be remembered that we have based our calculations 
on sheep which receive the best possible care. On 
the other hand we have not included the cost of trans- 



124 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

portation of the wool, which of course varies with the 
distance from the seaboard; and we have also omitted 
the cost of fine wool rams. Many of these latter are 
imported from Tasmania, California, or Vermont. On 
the whole, seventy-five cents will probably cover all 
the expense of raising the best sheep in Australia. 
As the estimate includes interest on all money in- 
vested, it indicates a rather higher cost than is often 
quoted by those who, when they speak of cost, mean 
simply the cost of labor. The statements I have made 
are based on the statistics of our Consuls, of the gov- 
ernment officials in the colonies and of large owners 
and dealers. I nave the satisfaction to know that the 
conclusion to which I have come concerning the total 
cost of Australian sheep is similar to that of Mr. W. G. 
Markham, who has spent some time in Australia in- 
vestigating this subject. 

On the opposite page is a condensed statement of the 
foregoing discussion.* 

* Since these statistics were compiled, I have received the following 
from J. D. Connolly, our Consul in Auckland : 

"I have endeavored to procure some reliable information in regard 
to the cost of wool-growing in New Zealand, which, I hope, may 
prove interesting to those engaged in similar occupations in the 
United States. 

"Th*e average cost per sheep a year to the breeders ( all expenses) 
is about 60 cents. The average proportion of sheep to attendants is 
one attendant to every 5,000 sheep. The average wages paid to at- 
tendants is $4.86 per week and found. The average weight of a fleece 
is : Merinos, 5 pounds ; cross-breds, 8 pounds. The average price 
that the breeders receive per pound of wool is from 10 to 23 cents in 
the grease — average, 17 cents per pound. The average size of a flock 
on stations is from 30,000 to 80,000, and in paddock farming ( inclosed 
in fields ) 200 to 3,000 sheep. Owing to the mildness of the climate, 
shelter beyond that which is furnished by hedges is not necessary. 
The character of their food is principally grass, except where sheep 
are being prepared for freezing and export to England, when they are 
fed on grass and turnips. The proportion of sheep and lambs lost 
annually from exposure is about 5 per cent. It is found that sheep 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 



125 



SUMMARY OF COST OF RAISING 20,000 SHEEP 
IN AUSTRALIA. 



One sheep to every two acres. 



3 boundary riders at $291.99 per annum 

4 shepherds at $364.97 per annum 

1 cook at $243.30 per annum 

1 store-keeper at $194.64 per annum 

2 laborers at $194.64 a year per man 

Food for 7 men at $6 per month * 

Cost of shearing 4.2 cents per head 

Total cost of labor 

Interest on permanent improvements (10 per cent. 

on 36 cents per acre) 

Interest on value of sheep (6 per cent, on $2.00 

per head) 

Interest on cost of fence 

Total interest 

Cost of land 

Total cost ... 



n> c> 2 



$875 97 
1459 88 

243 30 
194 64 
389 28 
504 00 
840 00 



$4507 07 

1440 00 

2400 00 
1 107 00 



$4947 00 
4800 00 



$14254 07 








1* 


rt> >-t 


f° « 


1-1 »> 


n> 


<T> 


' >d 


^4-3798 


7.2994 


1. 2165 


•9732 


1.9464 


2.5200 


4.2000 



22.5353 

7. 2000 

12.0000 
5- 535o 



24.7350 
24.0000 



71.2683 



COMPARISON OF OUR OWN AND AUSTRALIAN METHODS. 



The total cost per annum of labor in Texas of herd- 
ing fine sheep, on the basis of one man and a half 
to a band of 1200 

Total cost of labor per annum in Australia for the 
same character of sheep at the same rate of wages. 

Cost of fencing per annum in Australia 

Difference in favor of the Australian system .... 



For 

20.000. 



$7500 00 

3000 00 
1 107 00 
3912 37 



For 1 
sheep. 



37-5 

15- 

5-535 
16.965 



imported into New Zealand improve very much, both in constitution 
and in quality. It is generally attributed to the uniform mildness of 
the climate. No other satisfactory answer to this question is obtain- 
able, although I have made numerous inquiries amongst those who 



126 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

As a result of this low cost and the great weight of 
the fleece, together with the fine character of the wool, 
the profits of a successful sheepman, or squatter, as he 
is usually called when he leases government lands, are 
not unfrequently very great. The weight of the Vic- 
torian fleece is something wonderful. A station, such 
as we have described, will average eight pounds per 
fleece. The price in London for fine Victorian wool is 
now 22 to 22 y 2 cents per pound. This is higher than it 
has been for some time. A price of 23 cents means 20 
cents on board a vessel in Australia, for from London 
quotations one must deduct freight and sale charges, 
which amount to over 1 % cents, and also interest on 
the value of the wool during the voyage. Twenty 
cents per pound on an average of eight pounds is $1.60 

are familiar with the subject, than that the land, grass, and climate 
are peculiarly adapted to sheep raising. 

"The number of sheep exported last year with and without wool 
amounted to 1,964,281, valued at $553,040. Thirty-seven thousand 
eight hundred and twenty-six of the above number were shipped to 
the west coast of America ( San Francisco ) of the value of $5,055. 

<( The total value of wool exported from 1880 to 1889, inclusive, was 
$207,622,565. The wool export for 1880 was 66,860,150 pounds, valued 
at $17,473,450, whilst the returns for 1889 show the wool shipments to 
be 102,227,354 pounds ($28,037,005 ), an increase during the ten years 
of $10,563,550. 

" I still entertain the opinion expressed in my report to the Depart- 
ment of January 27, 1890, viz, that American wool buyers could buy 
in this market and ship direct to New York or Boston much cheaper 
than they could buy in London. It is reasonable to presume that the 
London or middle-man's commission, together with the cost of trans- 
shipment from London to New York, would at least be saved. I am 
forced to this conclusion from the fact that many of the continental 
buyers find their way to these colonies during the wool season. If 
wool buyers on the Continent find it profitable to purchase their wool 
from first hands, then would not American manufacturers find it 
equally advantageous to pursue a similar course ? The experiment 
seems worthy the consideration of those engaged in woolen manu- 
factures." [Appeared in the U. S. Consular Reports, No. 121, Oct., 
1890, pp. 347-8.] 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 1 27 

per sheep, excluding the value of the increase and the 
return from the sale of mutton. Even when wool was 
at 16 cents in London and 14 cents in the colonies, the 
return from wool alone amounted to $1.12, and the 
price could probably fall to ten cents per pound without 
driving many of the present owners out of the business. 
Soon the Australians, by the extension of the frozen 
meat trade, will be able to obtain a steady market for 
their mutton. They will then turn themselves to solv- 
ing the problem of breeding an animal which will at 
once be a good mutton and wool producer. 

The paddock system is undoubtedly the chief feature 
in Australian success. But we would commit a grave 
error did we not recognize the part played by the land 
laws. Indeed, some knowledge of these laws is essential 
to an understanding of the present conditions of the in- 
dustry in those colonies. Their chief object, as will be 
seen by a perusal of the note at the end of the book, is 
to force the settler, or squatter, to improve the land be- 
fore he obtains a grant in fee simple. By this means 
they have insured the thorough settling of the country, 
and restricted the growth of that pest of civilization — 
the man who holds unimproved land, waiting for a rise 
in its value owing to the improvements of his neighbor. 

I regret that it was impossible for me to examine more 
closely into the cost of sheep raising in other foreign 
countries. The information given in the table as to the 
average annual total cost per sheep, and the return from 
the sale of the clip, was furnished by the United States 
Consuls residing in the several countries. From the 
fact that all the questions which I addressed to our Con- 
suls were answered in the most painstaking manner, I 
have every reason to believe in the accuracy of their 
statements. It is curious to note that only in Australia, 
South America and Natal, does the return for the wool 
exceed the total cost per sheep. This would seem to 



128 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

indicate that the grower in other countries has other 
sources of revenue from his animals besides the fleece. 
This is the case. The Armenian, for instance, as I 
shall have occasion to point out again, turns the milk 
of his ewes into cheese, and sells as a great delicacy, 
the fat cut from the animals' broad flat tail. * 

*I have also received the following account of sheep raising in 
Southern Russia : 

4 ' The average cost per sheep a year to the breeders (all expenses) is 
2 rubles (^1.09). 

'"The average proportion of sheep to attendants is four attendants 
to every 1,200 sheep, viz., three men and a boy. Each man receives 
$50 a year, the boy $20. They are furnished with food and shelter 
and part of their clothes. 

"The average weight of a fleece is 9 pounds. 

"The average price which the breeders receive per pound of wool is 
from 10 to 12% cents. 

"The average size of a flock is about 1,200. 

"The sheep are never placed under shelter for a longer period than 
three months — December, January and February. 

"When under shelter the food consists of hay, straw, and occasion- 
ally a little salt, otherwise it is grass. 

" From 5 to 10 per cent, of sheep are lost annually through disease, 
age, and neglect. The proportion of lambs is about 20 per cent. 

"On the importation of sheep into the country the wool grows 
coarser and loses its grease! 

"The change of climate and the change of nourishment is undoubt- 
edly the cause of this change of fleece, as foreign sheep are usually 
fed on hay and barley." [Reported in U. S. Consular Reports, No. 
117, p. 255, June, 1890.] 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FUTURE OF THE INDUSTRY. 

From the result of my investigation into the cost of 
raising sheep and the distribution of the industry, I am 
led to believe that the success of sheep raising in any 
section depends upon three factors: namely, the charac- 
ter of the people, the climate, and the method employed. 
The relative importance of these factors varies in differ- 
ent countries. In the United States at the present time 
the character of the people is a far more potent factor 
than climate. If we look on the Diagram in Table V 
in connection with the number of sheep in each State 
and Territory shown in Table III, we will see that there 
is little connection between the cost of raising sheep and 
the condition of the industry. 

In Delaware, for instance, the annual return from 
raising sheep with proper management would be over 
190 per cent, on the investment, yet there are only 
22,000 sheep in that State, or one to every seven per- 
sons. We have already compared sheep raising in New 
Mexico and Montana. Montana is less favored by 
nature, but the industry is in a far better condition than 
in New Mexico. The South, however, is by far the 
most striking example of the effect of the character of 
the people. Within three hundred miles south of 
Philadelphia the actual cost of raising sheep is less 
than in Utah, Arizona, or New Mexico. Central Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, western North Carolina, and Vir- 
ginia, are places which nature seems to have especially 
prepared to be the home of the fine-wool sheep. These 
districts are well watered, have an equable climate, 
unrivalled pasturage, and cheap land. Nothing seems 
9 (129) 



130 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

to be desired ; yet there is not any part of the United 
States where sheep culture is in a more deplorable con- 
dition. In Tennessee some farmers have a few miser- 
able Scrub sheep, to which they give little or no 
thought. In Kentucky and Virginia the industry is 
only in a slightly better condition. The trouble is 
with the people, not with nature. Sheep could not 
be raised in the best portions of Australia, by the pres- 
ent population of many of the Southern States. I have 
spoken of the ravages of dogs, and of the impossibility 
of raising sheep in a country overrun with an ani- 
mal like the Southern cur; but at the same time we 
found that the cur is the result of bad social conditions, 
which foster a spirit of shiftlessness. Energy and 
thrift must be infused into the people before we can 
hope that they can deal with the dog problem. Char- 
acter and social conditions, however, are subject to 
change, while physical conditions are comparatively 
permanent. With every improvement in the condition 
of the South, the energy of the people of the Northern 
States will be less distinctively characteristic, and the 
physical differences between these two sections of our 
country will come more prominently into play. This 
fact must be borne in mind in any speculation as to the 
future of the industry. And in comparing the relative 
influence of social and physical causes on the future de- 
velopment of wool-growing, we must also remember 
the differences between raising sheep on a large and on 
a small scale. The former will always be conducted 
in the parts of our country which are comparatively 
thinly settled, and where consequently land can be ob- 
tained for a moderate sum. When a district is thickly 
populated, each acre must be put to its best possible 
use, which usually implies a careful rotation of crops 
and stock. Under these last conditions more depends 
on the efficiency of labor, and less on the bounty of 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 131 

nature. Thus physical conditions play a more import- 
ant part when large bodies of sheep are raised, than 
when there is a dispersion of small flocks among a 
farming population. For instance, if we wish to estab- 
lish sheep raising in the South it will be much easier 
for northern companies to buy large farms and clear 
the country of dogs, than directly to disperse among 
the present population good breeds of sheep. 

If we are ever to have large flocks of fine-wool ani- 
mals in this country, or produce the wool necessary for 
our own consumption, it must be by developing the 
industry in those sections where the physical conditions 
make it possible to raise sheep in large bodies at a low 
cost. In seeking the parts of our country where, if once 
established, the industry would have the greatest de- 
velopment, we must look more at the climate and soil, 
than at the present social condition of the people. For 
all that has been said concerning the fineness of the 
clip of the Northwest, does not render any less true the 
proposition that the sections of our country possessing 
an equable climate must ultimately contain the ma- 
jority of the large flocks of fine-wool sheep. The 
climate is the true test of what the expense of feeding 
ought to be. Thus in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and 
Nevada, the cost of feeding sheep, though practically 
nothing, is so only at the expense of a heavy annual loss, 
sometimes amounting to fifty per cent., of lambs and 
sheep, and a great deteriation in the quantity and 
quality of the fleece. The mean annual temperatures 
given below, together with the mean temperatures of 
the coldest months, and the average number of sheep 
and lambs annually lost from exposure, will give us a 
general idea of the climate in the different States of 
the West. 



32 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 









Average 


Average 








per cent. 


per cent. 




Mean 




of lambs 


of sheep 




temp, of 




lost 


lost 




the 


Mean 


through 


through 




coldest 


temp, in 


expos- 


expos- 




month 


1887. 


ure and 


ure and 




in 1887. 




poor 
feeding. 


poor 
feeding. 


Fort Randall, South Dakota . . . 


—8.6° 


37-2° 


10% 


2% 


Fort A. Lincoln, North Dakota . 


— 10. 


45- 


15 


10 


Fort Keogh, Montana 


8.6 


42.9 


15 


10 


Fort Hays, West Kansas . . 




23- 


5i-4 


20 


10 


Fort Sidney, West Nebraska 




23-4 


47.6 


20 


10 


Colorado Springs, Colorado . 




29.9 




30 


20 


Laramie Fort, Wyoming . . 




24.4 


" 4V.8 ' 


30 


25 


Boise City, Idaho 




36. 


53-i 


20 


8 


Ogden, North Utah 




34- 


54-3 


50 


8 


Carlin, North Nevada .... 




38-4 


48.9 


50 


8 


Maricopa, South Arizona . . 




5i-2 


74.2 


20 


5 


Shelden Fort, New Mexico . 




43-i 


62.5 


25 


10 


Modesto, California 




53-4 


72.1 


20 


5 


Gala, Oregon (Valley) . . . 




46.6 


63-5 


22 


5 


Fort Kalmath, Oregon . . . 




41. 


50. 


15 


5 


Walla Walla Fort, Washingtoi 


1 . 


4i-5 


5*.8 


20 


5 



The uncertainty of the climate in a great part of the 
West, not its severity, is the principal, drawback. This 
is true of places as far south as Northern Texas, for in- 
stance. Usually the temperature of the Willamette Val- 
ley, Oregon, is one almost perfect for producing fine wool ; 
but even here there are occasioual storms, and some 
food and shelter ought to be provided. In many parts 
of the West a blizzard may carry off half of the flock 
on one night, while the rest of the year, or for many 
years, shelter may be entirely unnecessary. The aver- 
age annual loss of lambs and sheep taken from esti- 
mates of ranchmen near the places whose temperature 
is given in the table is a good illustration of what I mean. 
The coldest climate does not coincide with the greatest 
death-rate from exposure. In Montana the ranchman, 
counting on bitterly cold weather, is prepared for it 
when it comes; but in sections like Southern Kansas, 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 1 33 

Colorado and Utah, where tlje climate is uncertain, 
only shelter of the most wretched sort, if any, is pro- 
vided. It is in these last States therefore that the 
greatest losses from exposure occur. While the climate 
of the Central Northwest is too cold, the climate of 
Southern Texas, New Mexico and Arizona is too warm. 
The fleece tends to grow lighter in weight, for nature 
throws off that which is superfluous. 

The soil and the rainfall are other important factors 
in determining the value of any section as a grazing 
country. In order that fine wool may be grown success- 
fully, the soil on which the sheep run must not be of such 
a character that the wool will be filled with sand, which 
not only weights the fleece, but cuts the fibre. This 
fact makes the Gulf coast, which has an excellent 
climate, unsuited for growing fine wool. In Southern 
Georgia and Northern Florida, besides the sand itself, 
sand-burrs become entangled in the wool and adversely 
effect the condition of the fleece. The trouble with 
sand exists not only on the western Atlantic and 
Gulf Coast, but wherever there is a sandy soil and a 
scarcity of vegetation. The grass is sparse throughout 
the greater part of Southern and Western Texas, New 
Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada. In many districts 
in these States the approach of a band of sheep is indi- 
cated by the great cloud of dust. The thinness of the 
grass, to which is due the prevalence of the sand, also 
proves that the sheep have insufficient nourishment, 
which in itself is enough to injure the condition 
of the fleece. We can never hope to permanently 
establish the fine- wool industry on a large scale in those 
parts of our country where the soil or rainfall render 
the food scarce or uncertain, and where the fleece is 
filled with sand, though these sections may always pro- 
duce considerable medium, or even fine-staple wool. 

The necessity of having soil somewhat more fertile 



134 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

than a desert is seen even more clearly when we con- 
sider the proper method of raising sheep. In examin- 
ing wool growing in Australia we found that the true 
cause of the low cost of production, is not so much the 
climate of that country, as the land laws and the custom 
of raising sheep in enclosed fields. It is not practical for 
us, at this late stage of our national history, to adopt the 
principal points of their land system. The younger 
nations have profited by our irretrievable mistakes. It is 
still, however, easy for us to adopt the paddock. The 
moment we change our ideas as to the proper method 
of raising sheep in large flocks — and change we must 
if we are ever going to make a success of the fine-wool 
industry in this country — a considerable modification 
will take place in our ideas as to the best place to run 
them. It is cheaper to herd sheep where the land it- 
self costs nothing; for it requires almost as many men 
to watch the sheep on land carrying two sheep to an 
acre, as on land which will not carry one sheep to every 
five acres. Little is gained therefore by herding sheep on 
expensive land. But with the paddock system, the cost 
of the fence must be taken into consideration. The 
cheapest land ceases to be the most profitable land on 
which sheep can be raised. In Australia the best paying 
animals are run on land which rents at over fifteen cents 
a year per sheep. There are plenty of desert lands in the 
interior, but nobody thinks of utilizing them. In Idaho, 
on the other hand, sheep are often driven one hundred 
and fifty miles in a year in search of pasturage, and a 
flock seldom remains more than two days at the same 
camp. To enclose such a tract would be impossible. 
If I am right in saying that the adoption of the paddock 
system is essential for the permanent success of wool 
growing on a large scale in our country, then only those 
districts which combine an equable climate and good 
pasturage can hope to become the home of the fine- wool 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 135 

industry. Unfortunately for the interests of wool grow- 
ing in the United States, on many Western ranches we 
are attempting to raise sheep in the wrong places, and in 
the wrong way. Southern California, parts of Texas and 
Oregon, are practically the only sections where fine wool 
is raised to any considerable extent, which are adapted 
to the industry. As before intimated the natural ad- 
vantages are all in favor of the Old South. Western 
North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky have climates 
which will rival that of Australia. The mean tempera- 
ture of Central Tennessee is 6o°; that of Melbourne, 
Victoria, 57. 5 ; while as in Anstralia there is no time of 
the year when the sheep require to be fed or housed, and 
unlike Australia there is no danger of drought. Land 
is cheaper on the average than in Victoria; grass is 
plenty and markets for wool lie within hundreds instead 
of thousands of miles. Social conditions are at present 
a strong, almost insurmountable, obstacle. But the 
South is awakening. Its natural resources are being 
developed, and we believe that if the condition of the 
wool market remains favorable, its great advantages 
in respect to sheep raising will be realized, and we shall 
witness the formation of companies for the purpose of 
prosecuting the industry on an extended scale. 

Cause and effect in the social and economic develop- 
ment of any country react on one another to such ex- 
tent that it is often impossible to separate the one from 
the other. Immigration to the South will lead to the 
establishment of many industries; but the industries in 
their turn will transform the character of the people, and 
make the slovenly and shiftless enterprising and indus- 
trious. The more successful the industry, the greater is 
its effect on the moral and social conditions of society, 
and in agriculture the successful industries will be those 
for which the soil and climate are especially fitted. We 
should therefore seek to develop each section along 



I36 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

those lines laid down by nature. The South being es- 
pecially adapted to sheep raising, no industry has a bet- 
ter chance of success, and consequently no industry can 
confer greater benefits on the people. 

The raising of large flocks in the Southern States is by 
no means inimical to the increase in the number of small 
flocks kept by farmers. In examining the cost of keeping 
field sheep, we saw that the chief differences in the cost 
of production arose from the number of sheep raised by 
any farmer in relation to the size of his farm, and from 
the climate. Where very few sheep are raised, only the 
cost of feeding and interest on the value of the animals 
need be taken into consideration. The establishment 
of sheep farms in the Northern States, and indeed in any 
portion of our country where the sheep have to be fed, 
is not the least expensive method of raising these ani- 
mals, and therefore would not be advisable. By this I 
do not mean to infer that each farmer should keep only 
a few sheep, or confine himself to the number which his 
waste land can support. An industry which is con- 
ducted solely on land for which there is no other use 
will never amount to a great deal. Raising sheep to 
clear land of briars will produce neither good mutton 
nor fine wool. An industry begins to be truly benefi- 
cial to a country and an aid to its development only 
when a good commodity is produced. In New Jersey 
the farmers raise sheep to clear the land of briars, and 
the industry confers but a limited advantage on the com- 
munity. In Ohio they raise sheep for wool and mutton, 
and the industry adds millions to the wealth of that 
State. What our farmers want is to add a new industry 
to those they already possess; not on the one hand to 
devote themselves exclusively to sheep raising, nor on 
the other hand to raise in a half-hearted way a few non- 
descript animals. It would, however, as in the case of 
any other industry, be worse than useless to encourage 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 137 

sheep raising in places totally unfitted for its develop- 
ment. Feeding so materially affects the cost that we 
can never hope for any great increase, except possibly 
on stock farms, in those sections of our country where 
the animals have to be fed over four months and a half. 
On the other hand, in the parts of our country where 
the winters are comparatively short, the feeding, though 
necessarily expensive, does not add as much to the cost 
as might be supposed. The farmer must look to the 
mutton as well as to the wool for his return, and the best 
mutton returns are only obtained when the sheep are 
fed to a considerable extent. The belt of country east 
of the Rockies lying between the thirty-eighth and 
forty-second parallel is well calculated for raising sheep 
in small flocks. Southern New England is also suited 
to this purpose on account of the close proximity of 
large markets. 

And here we may point out that the broken undulat- 
ing country along the Ohio, mentioned in the second 
chapter, as well as the land in western Massachusetts and 
northern New York, also sections where agriculture is 
not in as favorable condition as might be desired, are at 
the same time excellent sheep districts. Indeed, we 
will seldom find better grazing country than in southern 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The climate, though the 
sheep have to be housed for a short time in the winter, 
resembles that of northern Kentucky, rather than that 
of the central and northern portions of the L,ower L,ake 
regions. The blue grass is a native of the soil. The 
sheep being well suited to the higher ground, if they 
increase in numbers, will utilize the very land which is 
now unsuccessfully devoted to wheat. In fact, the whole 
belt I have spoken of as best suited for the development 
of the field sheep, coincides very closely with those dis- 
tricts where there exists the greatest agricultural depres- 
sion. The district along the Ohio we have already men- 



138 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

tioned; southern central Pennsylvania, southern New 
England, eastern Kansas, are all places in which the 
natural possibilities for extending the industry are 
good, and where at the same time the condition of 
agriculture is not as favorable as it might be. 

But there is another advantage which will spring from 
the general introduction of the industry among the farm- 
ers. Sheep require a great deal of intelligence on the 
part of those who raise them. There is no occupation 
in which farmers can engage where superior intelligence 
lends such a distinct advantage. At the same time, 
throughout a large part of our country there exists a 
marked tendency for the brightest boys to drift toward 
the large cities. This is due to a variety of compli- 
cated causes many of which we need not enter into 
here. But the chief cause will, we believe, be found in 
the fact that, though in the city the boys will be re- 
quired to work harder, there is a greater chance for them 
to acquire a larger income. As a result of this tendency 
for the brighter boys to drift toward the city, in many 
sections of our country agricultural production is not 
carried on by as intelligent a class as it would be if 
it were possible for the farmer, by producing a greater 
variety of crops and stock, to make his income greater 
than it is at .present. Thus an agricultural industry 
which was especially profitable to the intelligent farmer 
would lead many a boy who now drifts toward the cities, 
to remain on the farm and use his intelligence, not only 
in the production of wool and mutton, but also in the 
production of other agricultural commodities. 

We can, therefore, answer in the affirmative the ques- 
tion whether an increase in the production of wool and 
mutton will relieve the farmer in those parts of our 
country where the establishment of a new industry 
seems to be the only way in which to counteract the 
depression resulting from the present tendency to the 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 1 39 

over-production of the staple crops. The natural de- 
velopment of the industry, by which I mean its in- 
crease in those sections which by nature have been 
fitted for it, will confer a great benefit on our country. 
And in helping to establish it we are conforming to 
the rule which is the true key of national prosperity; 
namely, to develop our resources along those lines 
which nature has prescribed. By this I do not mean 
to grow tobacco in one section, corn in another, wheat 
in a third, and sheep in a fourth, but rather to develop 
all the varied resources of the different parts of our 
country, without forcing the cultivation of any commo- 
dity in a district which is unfitted for its production. 

The benefits of an increase in the industry being 
manifest, is it necessary for our Government to do any- 
thing in order to insure this increase ? For we must re- 
cognize that the time for abstract discussion of the 
proper sphere of government has long passed. At the 
present day we deal with facts. We want to increase an 
industry which will be of great advantage to the people. 
If Government protection and direction are necessary to 
'this end, then protection and direction are legitimate 
spheres of governmental activity. 

The cur, though a great obstacle to the successful 
prosecution of the industry in the East and South, can 
at present only be directly dealt with by the States. As 
we have pointed out, the prevalence of the evil is 
largely the result of the character of the people. In the 
South the cur can only be exterminated by those who 
undertake to grow sheep on a large scale. Like Mr. 
Polk Prince, of Kentucky, having established their 
sheep farm, they will, in defence of their property, 
effectually settle the dog nuisance. In the North the 
dog pest, though a formidable evil, has by no means 
reached such magnitude as in the Southern States. 
When we can demonstrate to the farmers as a class that 



140 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

sheep raising can be made to pay, their own interest will 
lead them individually and through the State Legisla- 
tures to abolish the evil. The coyotes, foxes, wolves 
and the panthers of the West, however, are not the result 
of the character of the population, and yet in many 
States they form an insurmountable barrier to the adop- 
tion of the paddock system. The State governments 
and individual enterprise do not seem able to cope with 
the evil, and it is therefore proper that the Federal 
Government should lend its assistance. 

We have seen that among the farmers of the East 
the lack of sheep suited to their conditions is the 
main cause of the decline of the industry. The fu- 
ture success of the field sheep depends largely on the 
diffusion of the proper breeds among small farmers. 
I have shown that the establishment of stock farms to 
supply our farmers with good rams at moderate prices is 
necessary to this end. We have already established 
Agricultural Experiment Stations. This is a step in the 
right direction, but we should realize that our whole 
duty toward the agricultural portion of our population 
is not done when we distribute seeds and analyze 
manures. 

By a suitable breed of sheep for the Eastern farmer, I 
mean sheep in which mutton will be the first considera- 
tion. I do not, however, wish to be understood as 
advocating a total disregard of the character of the 
wool. Thus the Cotswold, Leicester, and other sheep, 
bearing long combing wools, for which there is little or 
no demand, should not be introduced. The Shropshire 
and Down breeds are more nearly in accord with our 
conditions; besides yielding the best mutton, they pro- 
duce wool for which there is a steady demand. Then too, 
in any improvement in our Eastern sheep, the Delaine 
Merinos should not be overlooked. As before ex- 
plained, these sheep grow a fine fibre of three to four 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 14 1 

inches in length. Owing to improvements in combing, 
the wool is admirably adapted to making fine worsteds. 
The varieties of Delaine wool grown in Pennsylvania, 
New York and Ohio, are peculiar to America. The 
Delaine sheep is somewhat larger than the ordinary 
Merino, and takes on fat more easily. Thus the 
varieties of Delaine Merino, such as the Dickinson and 
Black-top, are much nearer our American conditions 
than any other breeds we have produced. On the other 
hand, an increase of the quantity and quality of mutton 
is to be desired. It would therefore appear that the 
suitable sheep for the Bast lies somewhere between the 
Delaine and the Down. Both these approach what 
should be our standard of excellence, the one dvino- 
prominence to the wool, and the other to the mutton, 
while at the same time neither is a poor mutton or 
wool-bearing animal. 

Having seen that the introduction of the proper 
breeds of sheep, as also the extermination of wild ani- 
mals, are two things which can be said to be practically 
essential in order to establish the industry in this coun- 
try on a proper basis, let us now turn to the more im- 
portant question of the tariff. For though we have 
shown that the benefits to be derived from the increase 
in the number of sheep far outweigh any sacrifice which 
is implied in a tariff on wool, we have yet to decide 
whether a tariff is necessary to increase such produc- 
tion. If we look at Table V. the first fact that strikes 
us is the general profitableness of the industry, even 
under free trade prices. Our investigation proves that 
it is possible to raise wool and mutton in the United 
States as cheaply as in any country in the world. This 
indicates that permanent protection will be unnecessary, 
but it does not show that temporary protection is use- 
less, or even that it may not be indispensable to the 
future prosperity of the industry. I use the words 



142 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

temporary and permanent in the sense explained in the 
first chapter. 

In studying the profits of sheep raising as shown by 
the table, certain other facts must also be taken into 
consideration. The column indicating the return from 
mutton is necessarily based on the assumption that there 
is a steady demand for that meat. This cannot be said 
to be strictly the case. The people of the United States 
have not, as a nation, a strongly developed desire for 
mutton. The demand is fluctuating. Even after the 
sheep arrive at the market, they may sometimes have to 
be disposed of for next to nothing. True, we consume 
yearly about 325,000,000 pounds of mutton, but then it 
should be remembered that we also consume about 
3,570,000,000 pounds of beef, a proportion of 1:10.94-. 
The English, on the other hand, consume about 875,- 
000,000 of mutton and 1,554,000,000 pounds of beef, a 
proportion of 1:1.8. • 

In America, outside of the cities, there is no demand 
for mutton. Farmers, as a rule, prefer pork. Even in 
the cities it is the testimony of hotel and restaurant 
keepers, that while they always know about how much 
beef their patrons are going to eat, the amount of mutton 
is an uncertain quantity. The taste, too, for beef is 
universal, but you seldom find a dozen persons who 
all like mutton. As a consequence, the principal roast 
of all large dinners must be composed of beef. ' ( Peo- 
ple complain of the eternal fillet," remarked one of 
the most celebrated caterers of the United States, ' ' but 
when they are given mutton there is much more dis- 
satisfaction. ' ' 

The cause for our uncertain and comparatively slight 
demand for the meat of the sheep is largely due to the 
fact that the average mutton which comes even into our 
highest-priced markets is far from being of the best 
possible quality. As for the cheap western mutton in 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 143 

the Chicago market, it is coarse-grained and stringy. 
The prejudice which exists against this article of diet is 
thus, to a certain extent, well founded, and will only 
be eradicated by the supply of a better quality of meat. 
The classes of society in our large cities who have now 
an opportunity of eating good mutton and lamb, are rap- 
idly losing their exclusive desire for beef. A strong taste 
for pork characterizes the great bodies of our farming 
population. A good example of how a desire for mut- 
ton, or in fact for any new article of diet, can be intro- 
duced, is found in Oregon and Washington. I will let 
one of my correspondents, Mr. V. H. Lamara, of Rits- 
ville, Washington, tell the story. He says : "I think I 
can tell why mutton is much higher here than it used 
to be. In the years 1877, ^S and 1879, mutton sheep 
were very low, from $1.00 to $1.25 per head, and a 
great many sheep were bought up and driven east to 
the border States, fed through the winter, and put on 
the Chicago and other markets in the spring. Beef 
had been very low for a series of years. People were 
educated to eat our bunch-grass beef. Every body said 
it was the finest in the world, and like Johnnie Bull, we 
became a nation of beef-eaters. There existed a strong 
prejudice against mutton, which was inherited from the 
eastern immigrants. But a change came over the spirit 
of our dreams. Beef commenced going up after the 
hard winter of 1880-81, and finally culminated in such 
high figures in 1883-84, that people began to seek 
cheaper meat, and it was then that mutton gradually 
came into use. The people found it so much better 
than they expected, that it has come to be generally 
eaten, and now the demand is greater than the supply. n 
A distinct advantage arising from the increased produc- 
tion of unimproved sheep, and their distribution among 
the farmers, is that the people will then be supplied 
with better mutton, thereby largely increasing the con- 



144 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

sumption of that meat, and consequently increasing the 
demand for sheep. 

The benefits of increasing the kinds of meat or vege- 
tables which a people are willing to consume, can 
hardly be over-estimated. Not only is it apt to lead to 
a better use of land, but it minimizes the power for evil 
which those who gain control of any industry may 
possess. If with every slight increase in the price of 
beef, for instance, the people would considerably in- 
crease their consumption of mutton, no combination 
of producers or slaughterers of beef, however rich and 
powerful they might be, could greatly increase the 
price with profit to themselves. The Standard Oil 
Company is the strongest monopoly we have, yet it has 
had to decrease the price of oil to the consumer; for, 
unless the price of oil is low in comparison with gas, 
the people will greatly reduce their consumption of oil. 
In other words, when the people can satisfy a desire for 
meat or light by any one of several commodities, it is 
impossible to greatly increase the price of any of them. 

But whatever the benefits which would result from an 
increase in our desire for mutton, we must recognize 
that at present this desire among the mass of our people 
is to a large extent undeveloped; and to deal with the 
question of profits on sheep to-day, the uncertain de- 
mand for the meat must be taken into consideration. 

We must also remember that the Western ranchman 
lives in constant fear that his stock will : be swept away 
by a blizzard or scattered by coyotes. To be sure, not 
over five per cent, of the sheep in Texas are lost by 
exposure, but this loss is not distributed equally. If one 
could calculate on a regular annual loss of twenty per 
cent, it would not have as bad an effect on the industry 
as this liability, though comparatively slight, to total 
ruin. It may be objected to this last statement that I 
have admitted that sheep should not be raised in dis- 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 145 

tricts subject to blizzards. True, but we shall never 
establish the industry in the right way by destroying 
that which we have already accomplished. Even under 
the most favorable conditions, it will take many years 
before we can develop the industry on a large scale in 
those sections suited for its future growth. As such 
States as Montana become more populous, the inhabi- 
tants will drift from sheep raising into other pursuits. 
It will be a natural and therefore an easy transition. 
It is better to allow the temporary continuation of an 
industry in places unsuited for its future development 
than to throw a large class of our fellow-citizens into 
bankruptcy. Finally, we must also bear in mind that 
sheep raising with us is virtually in the position of a 
new industry. Among other things, we want to change 
the whole method of raising sheep in large flocks, intro- 
duce new breeds among our farmers, and greatly in- 
crease the number of sheep. 

To induce any one to undertake raising wool or mut- 
ton on a permanent and extensive scale, the prospect 
of large profits must be held out to them. A person 
might enter into a well-established industry on the hope 
of a moderate return, but the return must be consider- 
ably larger to lead him to experiment in a new field of 
labor. Then, too, the small Eastern farmer has forgot- 
ten how to raise sheep. Just as the farmers in South- 
ern Pennsylvania are possessed with the idea that Dela- 
ware is the only spot in the United States where peaches 
can be grown, so many farmers in the East are filled 
with the notion that sheep cannot be raised with a 
profit ; that it was something their fathers did when the 
country was new, but now, when the land is more or 
less thickly populated, sheep raising must move farther 
west. One of the difficulties in starting an industry 
arises from the fact that the cost to the persons brought 
up in the business is not the cost to beginners. To the 



146 OUR SHEEP AM) Tin-: TARIFF. 

latter it must, from the nature of the case, be more ex- 
pensive. This is especially true of raising animals re- 
quiring such intelligent care as sheep. A striking exam- 
ple of the truth of this is seen by a comparison oi the 
profits of sheep raising in England and in Pennsylvania, 
In England the sheep cost about $2. 25 per annum, while 
the gross profit from the wool is 90 cents, and from the 
mutton #1.80. The net profit is therefore 45 cents, as 
against #1.1334 in Pennsylvania. Yet there are com- 
paratively few mutton sheep in Pennsylvania, and over 
twenty million in (heat Britain. The Englishman un- 
derstands sheep. He is sure of a steady though small 
profit. In America sheep raising to many of our farmers 
is in the experimental stage. We also want the number 
of sheep in this country to increase. The profits from 
the sale of mutton estimated in Table No. V. are based 
on the assumption that all animals which can be spared, 
without permanently reducing the number of the flock, 
are sent to the shambles. If we wish to establish this 
industry we must not only insure to the beginner a profit 
when his flock is stationary, but also when there is an 
annual increase. As is shown in our diagram, in the 
greater part of our country the return from wool under 
free trade would not amount to the cost of raising the 
sheep ; but if we are to expect our flocks to increase, we 
must practically place the wool-grower above the neces- 
sity of sending any of his ewes to market to make both 
ends of his account meet. 

Thus, though the facts concerning the cost of raising 
sheep in the United States undoubtedly prove that a 
tariff will be unnecessary when once the industry is 
firmly established on a proper basis, yet at present the 
margin of profit under free-trade prices would be too 
narrow to give sufficient encouragement to the farmers 
to increase their flocks or to the ranchmen to invest the 
large amount of capital necessary to buy grazing land 



P AND THE TARIFF. 147 

and build large paddocks. At the same time, any fur- 
ther increase in the tariff is unnecessary. It is part of 
our present policy to greatly add to the number and ex- 
tent of our woolen factories. Even the present con- 
sumption of our mills necessitates an importation 
of fully 70,000,000 pounds of scoured raw wool annu- 
ally. It will therefore be a number of years before 
we can hope to begin to supply the home demand for 
raw wool. To increase the duty on wool beyond the 
point necessary to attract investment would be to hurt 
our manufacturers, without conferring any correspond- 
ing advantage on the country. The changes in the rates 
on raw wool introduced by the McKinley bill were the 
subject of a good deal of criticism, for which there was 
little foundation. The changes from ten to eleven cents 
per pound on clothing wool and from ten to twelve 
cents per pound on combing wool were so small as to be 
of little moment. The other changes in the tariff of 
1890, and those which are of the greatest importance, 
:n the classification of waste, and the change from 
specific to ad valorem duties on wools of the third class. 
As I have shown in Chapter V., these changes were 
rendered necessary by the evasions practiced under the 
Act of 1883, and they all tend to insure that wool shall 
be assessed according to its character. 

Of course no tariff bill dealing with such a varied 
product as wool is absolutely perfect. This much, 
however, I think both free trader and protectionist must 
admit, that the classification and arrangement of the 
new duties on raw wool, waste, shoddy and rags, are 
more scientific than any we have hitherto had from 
Congress. There is one class of wools which we might 
have preferred to have seen placed on the free list. As 
has been stated, we produce but a limited quantity of 
wool suitable for carpets. To protect this wool seems 
only to retard the increase of fine-wool sheep. The 



148 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

tariff on the coarse carpet wool is, therefore, a premium 
on keeping the wool of our own flocks coarse, when fine 
wool could be grown at no greater expense, except in 
the first cost of rams. For it is just as cheap to raise 
sheep bearing medium clothing wool, or fine wool, as 
to raise those bearing the coarsest fleeces. The coarsest 
wools in our markets come from Turkey and Russia, 
yet the sheep of those countries cost their owner as much 
to raise as the finest animals in Australia. Fine wool is 
dearer than coarse, first, because those who possess the 
requisite intelligence to raise sheep bearing fine wool 
have, in one sense, a monoply. The inhabitants of 
Asia Minor, for instance, cannot raise fine wool, no 
matter how high the price held out to them. The 
wool from the eastern Mediterranean is coarse because 
the people are ignorant, not because fine wool would be 
more expensive. Then, the Armenians depend for 
their return more on the milk of the ewes, which they 
make into cheese, and on the carcass and pelt, or hide, 
than on the clip. They can, therefore, afford to sell 
the wool at a low figure. At the same time it would 
be inconsistent to tax fine wool at eleven cents per 
pound, and admit it free of duty when mixed with carpet 
wool, and as we have seen, nearly all carpet wool when 
in the dirt is mixed with finer staples. This fine wool 
is often sorted out before scouring, and used in cloths. 
The separation of the long and coarse from the short 
fine staple could be performed in England, or other 
country of immediate shipment. The coarse wool or 
carpet wool proper might then be admitted free of duty, 
while carpet wool mixed with fine fibres could be placed 
under Class I or II. With this exception, we are happy 
to think that the rates of duty in our present tariff are 
as good as could have been devised. 

The people, through their federal govennment, have 
taken one step in the right direction ; they have given 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 149 

the industry protection. The trouble is that they now 
seem to be inclined to do as they have always done; let 
the industry grow as best it may, without attempting to 
rid the plains of wild animals, or to diffuse among the 
farmers a breed of sheep suited to their conditions, and to 
investigate the cheapest methods of growing wool. Let 
us continue our policy of protection, and to this policy 
couple these other aids to the production of fine wool 
and good mutton, and I see no reason why we cannot 
make the sheep industry of the United States the ad- 
miration of the world, and an inestimable benefit, not 
only to our farmers, but to the whole country. 

The continuation of our present policy of protection 
to the industry appears advisable. It is in its nature 
temporary protection. By this, as before explained, I 
mean that when once the industry is firmly established 
along the right lines, a tariff will become unnecessary. 
How long this will take, however, depends very much 
on the future action of the government in other direc- 
tions, and the improvement in the social condition of 
the South. 

This brings me to the end of my investigation. 
When I began I had only a general knowledge of eco- 
nomic theory. The advisability of protecting wool I 
believed depended upon circumstances. We have taken 
the facts connected with the industry, and discussed 
them in connection with our foreign trade. The result 
may be stated somewhat as follows : 

A. — A temporary duty on wool, provided our Gov- 
ernment assists the farmers to introduce the proper 
kinds of breeds, and the proper method of raising sheep 
on a large scale is adopted, will enable us to make a 
large increase in our production of wool, and ultimately 
so decrease the cost of raising sheep that a duty will be 
no longer be necessary. 

B. — By temporarily paying higher for our wool, we 



150 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

cannot indeed hope for an immediate fall in the price 
of wheat or corn ; but a duty on raw wool, giving the 
farmer one more agricultural industry, making agricul- 
ture so much more stable and less likely to be injuri- 
ously affected by temporary fluctuations in the prices of 
one or two commodities, will tend to reduce not only the 
prices of these necessaries, but also of many other agri- 
cultural commodities. 

C. — The tariff on wool, putting one more obstacle in 
the way of our adopting the fashions in dress from coun- 
tries where the climate and other physical conditions 
are different from our own, and increasing our desire for 
mutton, will tend to place our people in a position to 
adapt themselves with Jess friction than at present to 
our own physical and climatic conditions. 

D. — By increasing the advantage which the intelli- 
gent farmer has over his less intelligent competitor, the 
duty will tend to increase the amount and diminish the 
cost of all agricultural production. 

In the first chapter four ways were indicated in which 
we might possibly be benefited by a tariff on wool. An 
investigation of the facts concerning the industry has 
shown us that such a tariff can be advocated because it 
acts not only in one, but in all of these four ways. The 
compensation we receive for paying higher for our wool 
comes, and will continue to come, from many and not 
from one source. Indeed, this statement is likewise true 
of nearly every economic change such as is implied in 
the act of imposing or repealing a duty. The result is 
always complicated. We cannot take one effect and 
conclude from its examination that the change is ad- 
visable or the reverse. Its wisdom depends rather on the 
preponderance of the good. That every consequence of a 
tariff on raw wool is beneficial no one would care to con- 
tend. What I have tried to show is that its general ten- 
dency is to increase the productive power of the nation, 
and consequently to improve the condition of the people. 



APPENDIX. 



ON THE LAND LAWS OF AUSTRALIA. 

One of the best features of the land laws of the 
Australian colonies, is the almost universal recognition 
of the principle that the purchaser must improve the 
land, before he obtains from the Crown a grant in fee 
simple. The Crown lands are usually divided into 
town (which also include village and suburban dis- 
tricts), agricultural, and pastoral lands. Land of the 
second class, except in New Zealand and Tasmania, 
is held under conditional lease, until certain prescribed 
improvements have been made. These improvements 
include fencing and clearing, and the destruction of 
rabbits, wallabies, kangaroos, and dingos. It is with 
the pastoral lands, however, that we are especially 
interested; as the laws which deal with this class ex- 
clusively affect the sheep industry. As their name 
implies, the pastoral lands are all those suitable for 
grazing purposes. The governments have recognized 
that to allow large tracts to be acquired by the squatters, 
would lead to the foundation of great landed estates. 
Two classes of measures have been adopted to avoid this 
real or supposed evil. The colony of Victoria has at- 
tempted to limit the amount of pastoral land which can 
be held by one person, to a tract sufficient to graze from 
four to five thousand sheep. On the other hand, all the 
other colonies of the Australian continent have limited 
the minimum, but not the maximum amount of a hold- 
ing. Experience seems to prove that neither regulation 
is very effective. 

(150 



152 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

The second class of measures, and by far the most im- 
portant, has had a great influence in the development of 
the colonies. In all the countries of the continent, pas- 
toral land, as long as it remains such, can be leased, but 
not aleniated from the Crown. The length and condi- 
tions of the lease vary in every colony. In New South 
Wales we have an example of a system apparently the 
least favorable to pastoral interests. The lands of that 
colony, which are rich and mountainous on the coast, 
become steadily poorer as we pass toward the interior. 
Much of the central and western portion is little better 
than a desert. It is a desert, however, which irrigation 
is capable of turning into a garden. The land divisions 
are known as the Eastern, Central and Western. The 
former contains scarcely any pastoral land ; the latter is 
composed of little else. Leases in the former run for 
only five years, with a possible extension for five years 
more, if in the meantime the land has not been declared 
agricultural, and the improvements made by the lessee 
are satisfactory to the Land Board. In the Western 
Division leases run for twenty-one years, with a possible 
extension of seven years more, at the discretion of the 
local Land Board. The lessee, however, must have made 
an application for such extension two years and ninety 
days before the expiration of his original lease. Ten 
years, with a possibility of five years extension, is the du- 
ration of a lease in the Central Division. In Victoria, 
pastoral lands, or pastoral allotments as they are called, 
can be leased for any number of years. This is coupled 
with the important proviso, that all leases must expire 
before December 29, 1898. A similar plan is followed in 
West Australia, where all leases expire simultaneously 
on December 31, 1907. The pastoral leases of the other 
two colonies of the continent, like New South Wales, 
have fixed terms — thirty-five years for the first lease in 
South Australia, and fifteen years in Queensland. In 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 1 53 

these colonies additional leases may be taken out for ten 
and twenty-one years respectively. In Tasmania and 
New Zealand the terms of a lease are not fixed by law. 
As will be seen, in all the colonies of Australia, except 
some leases in New Zealand, when any tract of land 
subject to a pastoral lease is terminated, the government 
is required to give notice to the lessee. It is also 
usual to issue what is known as an occupation license, 
which permits the lessee to occupy his old leasehold 
until the land is actually selected by permanent settlers. 
The power to declare land open to selection, thereby 
arbitrarily terminating a lease, is vested in the execu- 
tive portion of the Government, either in the Land 
Board or the Governor-in-Council. The term " Gover- 
nor-in-Council" denotes the Governor by and with the 
advice and consent of his Executive Council. This 
council is composed of ministers, who are, with the ex- 
ception of West Australia, responsible to the legisla- 
ture. The power to terminate pastoral leases has been 
much abused by impecunious colonial governments. 
Often land has been declared open to selection for the 
simple purpose of forcing the squatter to buy his run. 
A general feeling prevails among the sheep men that 
greater security of tenure is needed. As long as the 
pastoral interests could move back into the interior and 
find as good land as they had left, the hardship of the 
sudden termination of the lease was not very great; but 
now, when much of the good land has been taken up 
by speculators, and the squatter has often to spend 
thousands of pounds in sinking artesian wells and 
building tanks, greater security of tenure is required. 
Recent legislation has been in this direction. The 
length of the lease has been- increased, and in New Zea- 
land, since the act of 1888, pastoral runs can be had for 
certain definite periods not exceeding twenty-one years. 
Some of the colonies impose, besides the rent, condi- 



154 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

tions for the improvement of the run. As before inti- 
mated, New Zealand and Tasmania are exceptions to 
this rule. In New South Wales and in the Kimberly, 
and Eucla land divisions of West Australia, though 
no improvements are required from the 1 esses of pastoral 
lands, offers, in the shape of renewals of leases or reduc- 
tions of rent, are held out to those lessees who increase 
the carrying capacity of their land. In West Australia 
there is also a penalty for not stocking within seven 
years. This penalty does not extend to the Southwest 
Division, which is an agricultural district. Queensland 
does not attach any conditions to the lease. In Victoria 
all vermin must be destroyed within the first three 
years, and all buildings kept in good repair. In South 
Australia the land must be stocked within three years, 
unless a certain amount of money has been expended in 
machinery or buildings. 

There seems to be a general impression in the United 
States that compensation is made in Australia for im- 
provements. This is true only in three Provinces, 
namely : in Victoria, Queensland and West Australia. 
If the pastoral lease is terminated in any way, either by 
lapse of time, or because the land has been declared 
open to selection, compensation is given for all im- 
provements made by the squatter with the approval 
of the government authorities. In Victoria the amount 
of this compensation is limited to two shillings (48 
cents) an acre. The payment is not made by the gov- 
ernment, but by the incoming tenant. In the other 
colonies of Australia, on the termination of the pas- 
toral lease from whatever cause, all improvements 
revert absolutely and without compensation to the 
Crown. The rent of pastoral leases varies greatly. In 
South Australia the runs are sold at auction at an upset 
price of two shillings and sixpence, or sixty cents per 
square mile, for the first lease, and five shillings, or one 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 155 

dollar and twenty cents, for the second lease. The rent 
bid is only that for the first fourteen years, the rate of 
the remainder of the term being fixed by government 
valuation. The rest of the colonies grant their pastoral 
leases on fixed terms to the first applicant. The appli- 
cant, however, must be of the required age, which is 
seventeen years in New Zealand, and eighteen in the 
rest of the colonies. Married women, except those who 
are judicially separated from their husbands, or have 
their property protected, cannot become lessees. In 
New South Wales the terms are prescribed by the 
Minister, after valuation by the local Land Board. In 
Victoria the rent is based as before stated on the carry- 
ing capacity of the land, and is at the rate of one shill- 
ing (24 cents) per sheep. Queensland and West Aus- 
tralia disregard the carrying capacity, and regulate the 
rent by the size of the run. In the former colony the 
land commissioners determine the rent, which is subject 
to change by them every five years. For the first period 
the rent cannot be more than ninety shillings ($21.60), 
or less than ten shillings ($2.40) the square mile. In 
West Australia the rent varies in each land district. 
In the Southwest Division, the most thickly settled 
in the Colony, the rate is $4.87 for three thousand 
acres. The Eastern Division on the other hand is for 
the most part a trackless waste. The rent there is only 
one shilling and six pence (36 cents) for one thousand 
acres for the first seven years ; five shillings ($1.20) for 
the next, and seven shillings and sixpence ($1.80) for 
the remainder of the term. The whole population of 
this colony is only 42,137, or about three to every hun- 
dred square miles of territory. Eight- tenths of the land 
is practically uninhabited, much is unexplored, and the 
greater part is a sandy desert, broken only by salt lakes 
and dismal marshes. The climate of the northern sec- 
tion is excessively hot, and even in the capital, Perth, 



156 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

the thermometer, as in other parts of Australia, not 
infrequently rises several degrees above one hundred 
Fahrenheit. 

As before stated, the sheep are not all kept in enclosed 
paddocks. On account of the sparseness of the grass, 
and the cheapness of Chinese and 'aboriginal labor, 
many flocks are herded. The sheep themselves are the 
poorest in Australia, being sometimes subject to scab, 
while the average weight of fleece is less than four 
pounds of unwashed wool. The greater part of the clip 
is graded as combing. Mr. Burt, acting Colonial Secre- 
tary, estimates the annual cost of keeping sheep at thirty- 
six cents per head. This does not include interest on 
investment. In Tasmania the rent as well as the sale 
of all government lands is arranged by private contract 
between the Commissioners and the would be squatter 
or settler. 

New Zealand used to be divided into separate colon- 
ies. Since their union the land laws of the once dis- 
tinct colonies, and of the still smaller districts into 
which the islands have always been divided, have re- 
tained many of their distinctive features, some selling 
leases at auction, some leasing to the first applicant. 
In accordance with the policy of the colony, all the land 
districts sell and lease government land on the easiest 
possible terms. Besides pastoral lands proper, some 
colonies have specially proclaimed areas which rent on 
distinct terms. Thus we have the Mallee lands of Vic- 
toria. These are infested with rabbits and lie at a dis- 
tance from any railway. They are let in blocks of ten 
and three-fourths to five hundred and eighty-three 
square miles in extent. The upset price at the auction 
is four cents per head on the carrying capacity. All 
vermin must be destroyed within three years. Similar 
to the Mallee lands of Victoria, are the scrub lands of 
New South Wales. These are covered by the short 



OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 157 

Australian scrub bush, and are almost unfit for grazing 
purposes. On the recommendation of the local Land 
Board, land may be declared "scrub." These tracts are 
then rented in the same manner as other pastoral runs, 
but at reduced rates. The scrub, a noxious under- 
growth, seems to be gaining ground in parts of New 
South Wales. Squatters who had rented what they 
thought fair pasture lands soon found themselves unable 
to carry the number of sheep they had expected. The 
scrub clauses of the act of 1889 were inserted to enable 
squatters so situated to reduce their rent by having part 
of their land declared scrub. 

In West Australia much of the land was covered by a 
poisonous plant. This plant, while at one time a serious 
evil, can now be easily removed. Lands covered with the 
growth are declared "poisonous" by the government. 
If the lessee of such land, having paid a pound rental 
for each one thousand acreSj shall prove to the satisfac- 
tion of the Governor-in-Council, that for two years sheep 
have been safely pastured thereon, he is entitled to a 
grant in fee simple. 

The colonists are beginning to recognize that for the 
development of much of the interior something more 
than individual effort is required. The coast is, as a rule, 
cool and well watered, but at a comparatively short dis- 
tance inland the water supply totally fails, and artesian 
wells must be resorted to. When irrigation on a large 
scale, is required the operations must be carried on by 
the government itself or by large companies. Austra- 
lians have commenced to adopt the latter plan. Already 
in South Australia large concessions have been made to 
the Chaffrey Brothers, who in return are to render habit- 
able a large section of country. A similar concession 
will probably soon be made to the Lake Bony Land 
Company. 

This review of the land laws of Australia, though 



158 OUR SHEEP AND THE TARIFF. 

cursory, is enough to show that their general tendency, 
especially in Australia proper, is to improve the land, 
to increase its carrying capacity, and to rid the soil of 
troublesome animals and plants. 



